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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE WORKING CHURCH. 



THE 



lodung Bljurcfj. 



CHARLES F. THWING, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF "AMERICAN COLLEGES: THEIR STUDENTS AND WORK," 

"THE READING OF BOOKS;" AND JOINT AUTHOR OF 

" THE FAMILY : AN HISTORICAL AND 

SOCIAL STUDY ; " ETC. 



#* 




NEW YORK: 
THE BAKER AND TAYLOR CO. 

740 and 742 Broadway. 



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-?>£ 



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Copyright, 1888, 
By The Baker and Taylor Co. 






Press of J. J. Little & Co., 
Astor Place, New Yor*. 



Wqt Wwa Cfjurrijes 

I HAVE LOVED AND SERVED AS MINISTER I 

THE NORTH AVENUE CONGREGATIONAL, OF CAMBRIDGE, 

AND 

THE PLYMOUTH, OF MINNEAPOLIS. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. The Church and the Pastor: In- 
troductory 9 

II. The Character of Church Work . 16 

III. The Worth and the Worthlessness 

of Methods . 31 

IV. Among the Children ...... 37 

V. Among the Young People .... 53 

VI. Among Business Men 62 

VII. From the Business Point of View 70 

VIII. Two Special Agencies 86 

IX. Treatment of Strangers .... 98 

X. The Unchurched . 109 

XI. Benevolence . 127 

XII. The Rewards of Christian Work . 145 



**£ Parts of several of the chapters have been published in 
such journals as the "Independent," "Christian Union," "Con- 



grcgationalist," and "Advance. 



THE WORKING CHURCH. 




CHAPTER I. 

CHURCH AND PASTOR. — INTRODUCTORY. 

HE Church is at once the church of 
the Son of God and the church of 
the Son of Man. It is the church 
of the Son of God. He is its head ; He is its 
Spirit, and it is His body ; He is its life. Its 
origin is in the principle of divine love em- 
bodied in Him. Its history is the history of 
the unveiling of the principle of human re- 
demption. The church is the church of the 
Son of Man. It includes all those who accept 
the principle of divine love, and endeavor to 
obey the duties revealed by this love. It in- 
cludes all those who are " predestinated," says 



IO THE WORKING CHURCH. 

Wycliffe. It embraces all holding the Word 
and observing the sacraments, says Luther. 
It is the visible organization in which pure 
doctrine is taught, says Melanchthon. It is a 
society in which every regenerate soul is a 
component part, says Schleiermacher. It is 
the religious community into which civil so- 
ciety grows in its moral development, sug- 
gests Rothe. The Church, therefore, is at 
once divine and human, — divine in origin, di- 
vine in continued dependence on divine grace, 
divine in the glorious consummation which 
awaits its development ; human in including 
mankind, and in having as its sphere of ac- 
tivity the whole world. Down to the Refor- 
mation of the sixteenth century the Church 
was considered primarily as a divine insti- 
tution ; in the last three hundred years its 
human relations have, with each passing 
generation, become more conspicuous. 

It is to the human relations of the Church 
that this book is devoted. Of these human 
relations only the more aggressive are in- 
cluded within its view. 



CHURCH AND PASTOR. 1 1 

The work of Christ's redemption is con- 
tinued by His Church. The labor of the 
Church, therefore, is primarily the turning of 
men from sin unto righteousness. Its pur- 
pose is the incarnation of holiness in the 
individual and in the community. The field 
of this labor embraces all classes, ages, and 
conditions. 

Its prime duty is the conversion to, and 
edification in, Christ of those who are within 
its immediate relation ; but it also bears rela- 
tions to the universal cause of Christ, and 
owes duties to philanthropy. It is the great 
missionary power. It is to obey the com- 
mand of going forth and evangelizing the 
world. Missionary endeavor — local, national, 
universal — is its simple duty, and is also its 
increasing joy. Its members should heed 
the individual call of the consecration of 
their lives and of their wealth to this ser- 
vice. Every form of wise charity it should 
seek to foster ; it should strive to inspire 
charity with the spirit of Christ, and to 
impress it with the methods of Christian self- 



12 THE WORKING CHURCH „ 

helpfulness. It is itself a temperance organ- 
ization, and should co-operate with every 
wise endeavor for ridding the home and the 
nation of the direful curse of drunkenness. 
It should strive to teach labor its dignity and 
duties, and capital its responsibilities and 
worthy rights. It should seek to dispel pov- 
erty by removing its causes, giving not alms 
so much as friendship. It should welcome 
every wise attempt to construct the social 
order upon a better basis than the present, 
yet disavowing all regard for a godless com- 
munism. It should show to the working-man 
that every movement toward a free Sunday is 
a movement toward a working Sunday. It 
should, in general, prove itself a friend to 
every man whom it can help to make more 
worthy of the Christ who died for him. 

The sphere of the Church is as broad as the 
world : its work is limited only by the needs 
of sinning, suffering humanity ; its duty is 
measured only by its power, in the name of 
Christ, of serving and saving lost men. In 
its relation to other churches of the same or 



CHURCH AND PASTOR, 1 3 

other order, the individual church is to be 
guided by the principles of Christian liberty 
and courtesy. Laboring for the public weal, 
it is never to strive to build itself through the 
decline of other worthy interests. It is to 
recognize that the prosperity of all churches 
and the prosperity of common interests and 
objects are more worthy than its own individ- 
ual growth. Yet it is always to labor to make 
itself vigorous, strong, and efficient, for the 
sake of Him to whom it belongs and whom 
it serves, and for the sake of the world He 
would save. 

The pastor of a church holds to it a two- 
fold relation, — ■ that of preacher and of chief 
executive officer. The preaching should be 
devoted to the promotion of Christian char- 
acter. Its content and burden should be the 
gospel. Its methods should be adapted to the 
intellectual and other conditions of those to 
whom it is addressed. Its tone should be inva- 
riably warm, earnest, and spiritual. It should 
embrace the doctrines, and should also be in- 
tensely practical in aim and application. It 



14 THE WORKING CHURCH 

should be supported by the Bible, and should 
prove itself true and just to human reason. 
It should be convincing in argument and per- 
suasive in appeal. It should be the truth of 
God known in the life of the preacher, mak- 
ing itself known to other lives. It should be 
at once, in the broadest and narrowest sense, 
Christian. 

The executive work of the pastor is as 
broad and diverse as the work of the church. 
But his chief purpose is to develop the activi- 
ties of his church as a Christian institution. 
He is, therefore, to plan methods and to sug- 
gest lines of Christian service ; to stimulate 
energy ; to adjust work to worker, and worker 
to work. He is to unite individuals into co- 
operative labor. He is also to attempt to 
allot to each member some specific and in- 
dividual Christian service. He is to work 
through workers. Yet he should be ashamed 
to spare himself. In his general bearing he 
is to be a bishop, overseeing the individual 
lives of the members ; a shepherd in the older 
meaning, leading and not driving his flock, 



CHURCH AND PASTOR. 1 5 

loving and trying to show himself worthy of 
being loved, trusting and trusted, as he may 
merit ; a minister, rejoicing in every oppor- 
tunity of service for his Master among men. 
In a larger and more public relation he should 
not fail to conceive and to do his duty to the 
cause of education, embodied in school and 
college, endeavoring to make it Christian ; 
never, moreover, should he forget that he is 
a citizen of a Commonwealth whose founders 
regarded the Church and the State as one. 

But if the pastor is a minister of the church, 
he is also, and more, a minister of, and for, and 
by Christ. Like the disciples on the Mount 
of Transfiguration, he is to see no man "save 
Jesus only." The truth of Christ he is to 
know, the duty of Christ to do, and the com- 
mendation of Christ to endeavor to receive. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 

1HE course of study in the theological 
seminaries has been greatly enlarged 
within a decade. Biblical theology, 
archaeology, languages cognate to the He- 
brew, and science in its relation to religion, 
have found a place in the curriculum. Es- 
sential as some teachers regard these studies 
to the complete scholarly equipment of the 
minister, they are yet not as essential as a 
subject in which little or no instruction is 
given. This subject relates to the adminis- 
trative or executive work of a church. In 
one sense this department is akin to what is 
usually called pastoral theology ; in another 
sense it is quite remote. As pastoral theol- 
ogy has been taught, it consists of the barest 
commonplaces and insipid platitudes. My 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 1/ 

own studies at a theological school are not 
so distant that my memory of them is in- 
distinct ; but the chief fact in the course 
of lectures on pastoral theology — delivered 
by a most godly and lovable professor, now of 
blessed memory — .which I yet recall, is that 
a pastor should not, under ordinary condi- 
tions, make a call of more than twenty min- 
utes. Instructions as to the performance of 
a marriage or the conduct of a funeral service 
or the leading of a prayer-meeting are not 
by any manner of means to be despised ; but 
such instructions are no more adequate to the 
demands which the young minister is asked 
to meet, than the old spinning-wheel is capable 
of furnishing thread for the modern loom. 

The problem which every young minister 
meets in his installation over a church is this: 
What can be done to put this church to work? 
What can be done to cause it to impress 
Christian sentiment upon this community ? 
What can I, its pastor, do to make this 
church a power ? How shall I work with 
it ? His sermons may be biblical, eloquent, 

2 



1 8 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

instructive, inspiring ; his pastoral visits re- 
lentless in their systematic thoroughness ; 
his leadership of the devotional meetings 
wise : but all this, his work, does not quicken 
the church to its work. Over and above all 
this, are several departments or sections of 
church work which he should organize and 
formulate, and for the organization and formu- 
lation of which the training of the theological 
school should give him aid. 

The training of the baptized children in 
the truths and duties of the covenant which 
their parents have made in their behalf ; the 
training also of all the children in a knowl- 
edge of the Bible and of Christian doctrine ; 
the ways and means of conducting classes in 
some catechism or synopsis of biblical truth ; 
the work with, for, and through the young men 
and women of the parish, — their organiza- 
tion for aggressive labor, sympathy with them 
in the difficulties besetting the first years of 
Christian experience, and the methods of 
arousing and guiding their enthusiasm ; the 
ways and means for reaching the unchurched, 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 1 9 

— the character of the popular Sunday-even- 
ing service, the neighborhood prayer-meeting, 
the open-air meeting of the Sabbath afternoon 
in the city, the reaching the back districts 
in the country through school-house Sunday- 
schools, prayer-meetings, and preaching ser- 
vices ; the work for the intemperate, for the 
young in reference to temperance, sewing- 
schools, cooking-schools, and similar philan- 
thropic agencies ; special endeavors to restore 
lapsed church-members ; assigning special 
church work to each new member ; the in- 
troduction of the new families joining the 
congregation to the older families ; methods 
of greeting and interesting strangers in the 
church ; the Sunday-school in all its manifold 
interests of the instruction of teacher and 
pupil, of division into departments and classes, 
of keeping vigorous the spiritual side of the 
teaching ; the organization of mission schools, 

— all these, and many more features and 
departments, the young pastor, immediately 
after his first service on the Sabbath, is 
called to consider. A minister of large com- 



20 THE WORKING CHURCH 

mon sense, without previous training, will 
attack the problem and solve it to the best 
of his ability. But many ministers will be 
either unconscious that any such problem is 
before them, or will be inclined to sit down 
before it with hands folded. 

The solution of the religious problem of 
the city lies in the administration of the 
church. So, also, does the solution of the 
equally important religious problem of the 
country. No class of professional men is 
working more hours each week, or working 
more severely than the clerical. The sur- 
prise is that their sermons are as good as 
they are. The seminaries train students well, 
never better, for doing their individual work 
of writing helpful sermons. To the sermon 
I would assign the highest place in Christian 
instruction and inspiration. But the minister 
should know that his chief executive work is 
to make other people work. He can do little, 
very little himself, to lessen misery, to arouse 
religious conviction, and to convert the city or 
the village to sound views or righteous prac- 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 21 

tice. He should read carefully the lesson 
of his inability and limitations. But he also 
should know that through others the little 
one himself may become a thousand. Let 
him be the commander-in-chief, not to fight 
himself, but to train others for fighting, to 
plan the campaign and put these trained 
workers into the field of action. The 
churches — that is, the individual members 
of the churches — are to do Christ's work. 
The pastor is the chief of directors. The 
most useful church is the most laborious 
church. Not less preaching, but more ; not 
less learning, but more ; not less eloquence, 
but more ; but above all present human in- 
struments, ability to put a church to work in 
its community, is the need. 

Various definitions are given of the Church, 
according as the Church is conceived as local 
or universal, denominational or catholic, visi- 
ble or invisible ; but these various defini- 
tions have one common element, a belief in 
Christ as the Saviour of the world. It would 
be well, I think, if our conception of the 



22 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

Church could be so formulated as expressly 
to include, not simply those believing in 
Christ as the world's Saviour, but also those 
who are laboring to bring the world unto 
Christ to be saved. The Church is the col- 
lective body of those who are endeavoring to, 
serve Christ among men. The idea of the 
Church as a working force needs reiterated 
emphasis. For the Church is the incarnate 
Christ, and is to continue and to complete the 
work which He came to begin. The Church 
is the evangelizing, missionary power. The 
mission of the Holy Ghost we are to honor 
and to co-operate with ; but with His purpose 
of leading into all truth and of sanctifying 
men, we are in closest union when we obey 
the command of Him who sent the Holy 
Spirit, the command to " go." The Roman 
Catholic Church has its order of workers ; 
but in the Protestant Church each member 
is supposed to be a worker. Wesley's motto, 
with slight variations, is right : " All at it, at 
all times, in all places, and in all ways." We 
should not have simply the church of Saint 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 2$ 

Paul, the church holding forth the faith ; 
neither should we have simply the church of 
Saint James, on whose front works are bla- 
zoned ; but we should have the Church of 
Christ, in which neither faith nor works are 
neglected, but in which both are harmoniously 
united and effectively adjusted. It is, there- 
fore, evident that the Church of Christ is the 
Church at work in Christ's service. 

To the church thus at work the pastor 
holds the relation of bishop, overseer, presi- 
dent, director, guide. He is himself to be a 
laborious worker. He cannot hope to have 
his church at work, unless he is at once an 
example and an inspiration. If he be labo- 
rious ; cordial to strangers and new families ; 
attentive to the sick, the mourning, and the 
poor ; wisely regular in his parochial labor ; 
thoughtful of those requiring special watch 
and ward, as the new convert and the in- 
quirer ; strong, vigorous, aggressive, eager to 
do as much as possible, — his church will 
catch the enthusiasm of his example, and will 
be aroused by the inspiration of his work. 



24 THE WORKING CHURCH 

Choose the churches in New York, Chicago, 
Boston, Philadelphia, which are most active 
and aggressive, and it will be found, with 
scarcely an exception, that they are the 
churches manned by the most active, aggres- 
sive, and laborious ministers. The old min- 
ister said to the young minister, " If you are 
a faithful minister of Jesus Christ, you will 
have many an aching head, weary back, and 
heavy heart." Yes ; the minister's head ought 
to ache, and his back ought to be weary, and 
his heart ought to be heavy, in the noble 
and devoted earnestness of his labor. As a 
class, ministers are more laborious than law- 
yers or doctors ; but most ministers should 
be far more devoted to the work. If they 
cannot be Pauls, they can be Paul-like in the 
enthusiasm, courage, and persistency of their 
work. 

In arousing his church to its work and in 
securing workers, the pastor will receive aid 
by making the tone of his preaching mis- 
sionary and evangelizing- The conception of 
the Church as a collective body of Christians 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 2$ 

laboring in Christ's cause should be almost 
as constant an element in each sermon as 
the statement of the terms of salvation. He 
should seek to indoctrinate his hearers with 
the gospel of work. This general character 
of his preaching will not prevent him from 
occasionally devoting special sermons to spe- 
cial departments or demands. But beside this 
method and principle, each pastor should per- 
sonally and individually call men to special 
service. Knowing the work which God seems 
to ordain his Church to do, alert to discover 
those who may serve in this divinely appointed 
mission, he should be as the chaplain of St. 
Andrews who summoned John Knox into 
the Christian ministry : " I charge thee, as 
thou hast a regard for the glory of God, the 
salvation of men, and your own eternal well- 
being, that you neglect not this duty to which 
God calls." 

The pastor can and may in God's name 
summon men to service in the Sabbath- 
school, to service in gathering in the un-. 
churched, to service in establishing missions, 



26 THE WORKING CHURCH 

to service in the cause of charity, to service 
in any one of the lines of endeavor by which 
the Church seeks to move the world. 

Though no member is to be indifferent to 
any part of the work of the church, each 
member has abilities which more efficiently 
qualify him for service in one part than in 
another. The dictate of common sense and 
the dictate of the Scripture is that he de- 
vote his powers to those lines of work in 
which they will prove of most worth. One 
man, with a peculiar readiness of address, may 
be ordained by the pastor for looking after 
the unchurched and the new families taking 
up their residence in the neighborhood of the 
church. To one woman may be committed 
the special task of gathering children into 
the Sunday-school. To another woman may be 
intrusted the duty of instructing the children 
in the Bible, in a way more thorough than the 
hour of the Sabbath-school permits. The 
charitable work, not in the negative sense of 
giving away old clothes or sending out dozens 
of Thanksgiving turkeys, but in the positive 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 2 J 

sense of showing one's self a genuine friend 
to those in need, may be commended to the 
wise diligence of a special board of ladies and 
gentlemen. The work, too, of instructing the 
young men and women in the Bible and in 
Christian doctrine and in matters of church 
work should be placed in the special charge 
of those competent for this serious duty. 
The outlook committee on mission work, 
local, national, foreign, should not fail of re- 
ceiving consideration. 

The pastor, seeing the work which his 
church ought to do, understanding so far as 
possible the abilities of its members, should 
seek to set each member to that task to 
which nature and grace have fitted him. His 
worthy purpose is to put others to work. 
He may in the first year of his pastorate 
work much harder in getting his church to 
work than he would in doing himself all 
the work which he gets it to do ; but it is 
better for the church always, and in the end 
better for himself, that this division and sub- 
division of labor be pursued. Let the pas- 



28 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

tor himself train special workers for special 
works. Agassiz was once asked what was 
his greatest work in Ameriea. His reply 
was, the training of three men. " One," 
said the great naturalist, " has abandoned 
my theories, and one has become indifferent 
to .me ; but the scientific training of three 
scholars is my greatest . work," — greater 
than the building of the great museum at 
Cambridge, greater than all the investiga- 
tions on two continents which made him 
one of the first naturalists of the century. 
Likewise many a pastor finds his greatest 
work in a ministry, not the building of a 
splendidly equipped meeting-house, not the 
receiving even of hundreds into church-fellow- 
ship, but the conversion to Christ and the 
training of a few men and women who are 
thus qualified for eminent service. Let each 
pastor know the work which his church is 
evidently by its position ordained of God to 
do. Let hirq, with this knowledge, study to 
allot this work in its diverse forms to those 
who can and ought to do it. 



CHARACTER OF CHURCH WORK. 29 

Having secured his co-workers, the pastor 
is to train them for effective labor. In most 
instances these whom he thus invites are in 
greater or less need of instruction and disci- 
pline in church work. The work itself is the 
best training-school, but he may himself give 
them aid. The more than four hundred mis- 
sionaries of the London City Mission receive 
a training more or less peculiarly fitted to 
their peculiar duties. The instruction which 
a pastor gives may be special and individual; 
but the main purpose which qualifies all his 
teaching is to teach the use of the Bible in 
bringing the unconverted to Christ. In fol- 
lowing this aim he will give instruction in 
the Scriptures, and in particular in the fun- 
damental truths of the Scriptures. He will 
illustrate and emphasize his meanings by the 
use of actual instances of conversion. God 
the Father, God the Saviour, God the Holy 
Ghost, grace, repentance, forgiveness, confes- 
sion, faith, regeneration, conversion, justifica- 
tion, are subjects which he considers in the 
light of the Bible. In the study of individual 



30 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

cases he will seek to show how the Word, 
" fitly spoken " and " in season," has proved 
to be the "sword of the Spirit," sharper than a 
" two edged-sword, piercing even to the divid- 
ing asunder of soul and spirit . . . and a dis- 
cerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." He will endeavor to give sugges- 
tions as to dealing with the doubter, the igno- 
rant, the fearful, the discouraged, the wilful, 
the complaining, the proud, those lacking con- 
viction, those lacking decision, those weak in 
the faith, backsliders, and new converts. 
Thus, month by month, year by year, train- 
ing his associates to service, he tries to equip 
them for the general or particular duties to 
which nature and grace seem to call them. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WORTH AND TH£ WORTHLESSNESS 
OF METHODS. 




VERY pastor has his methods in 
working with and for his church, 
and in getting his church to work. 
The exact nature of these methods is of less 
importance than the fact that the methods 
are his own, — methods with which he is ac- 
quainted and which he can handle. Eccle- 
siastical methods, like personal habits, are 
constitutional. If they are not his own, if 
he fails to understand them, he is quite as 
helpless as David in Goliath's armor, or as 
Goliath with David's sling and stones. In 
his use of methods of work the pastor is 
exposed to perils. 

Among these perils is the danger of believ- 
ing that methods which are successful in one 



32 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

church will prove successful in another, or 
that methods which succeed in a church at 
one time will always succeed. Methods should 
be very elastic. They should be capable of 
great adaptiveness. They should be adjusted 
to the peculiar needs of each church. For 
instance, the prayer-meeting should be a 
meeting for, and of, and by the people. But 
a church may for generations have been ac- 
customed to regard this meeting as a lecture 
by the minister. The newly installed pastor, 
with memories of the pleasant conferences of 
his former charge, cannot transform the hour 
of a lecture given by one into an hour of 
religious conversation shared in by a score. 
Moreover, the type of the prayer-meeting in 
which religious conversation prevails may in 
time become vapid and inconsequential. The 
pastor should endeavor to throw greater in- 
tellectual vigor into its exercises without dim- 
inishing their heartiness. In every respect a 
pastor should hold himself ready .to surrender 
or to alter his methods according to the de- 
mands of the place or the time. 



WORTH OF METHODS. 33 

In thus doing, the pastor is guarded from 
a not uncommon peril, — namely, of believing 
that methods have intrinsic worth. Of course 
we all know that they are good only so far 
forth as they do good; yet long associations 
with methods may result in transferring our 
regard for the end to the means by which the 
end is gained. Systematic pastoral visitation 
is an idol with not a few ministers ; but the 
annual or biennial call on each family is not 
an ideal which is to be followed inflexibly 
without reference to the real needs of any 
family, or to the good which a pastor may 
do by special attention to certain households. 
Each minister is to put his pastoral or his 
other work in that place where it will effect 
the richest results. 

In subordinating methods to ends, aid may 
be drawn from keeping constantly before the 
mind and heart the supreme aim of all church 
work, — the development of Christian char- 
acter. If any method fails to achieve this 
purpose, it is useless ; if it succeeds in achiev- 
ing this purpose, it has value. Every method 

3 



34 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

should be brought to this ultimate test of 
conversion and edification. No matter how 
perfect the machinery of a church, or how 
admirably and noiselessly or boisterously it 
moves, if it fails here it is a complete failure. 
We must maintain this aim as ultimate and 
supreme, and cause methods to adjust them- 
selves to this ideal. This most worthy pur- 
pose elevates toil, ennobles self-sacrifice, 
adjusts difficulties, eliminates selfishness, 
strengthens patience, gives to work enthu- 
siasm and enlargement, and crowns it with, 
increasing success. 

A pastor should also guard himself from 
the danger of imposing his methods on 
churches unwilling or indifferent to receive 
them. We ministers are not to have pet 
hobbies to impose on anybody, least of all 
on those whose servants we are. We are to 
justify the wisdom of what we propose to. do 
in a church, and of. the ways in which we 
hope to win our aim. This justification it is 
not necessary to herald in advance, if our 
purposes are right and our methods wise. 



WORTH OF METHODS. 35 

They will prove to be their own justification. 
It may be that a church to whose pastorate a 
minister is called, has methods and practices 
which are superior to any he may himself 
possess. In this case he should be more than 
willing to adopt these methods, and to work 
them to the best of his ability. Along this 
same line it is to be still further said that 
abrupt changes of method are usually evil. 
Churches, no more than children, like to be 
jerked. It is also worthy of remark that we 
young ministers in particular are in danger, 
in an adoption of church methods, of not 
showing sufficient deference to elders and to 
those who have special interest in the church/ 
It may also be true that we are in peril of 
paying too much deference to the wealthy 
and scholarly classes. To avoid this peril of 
pastoral autocracy, the pastor should hold full 
and frequent conferences with the officers, 
and should not adopt important measures 
except with their approval and the promise 
of their hearty co-operation. For he is not 
lord or autocrat, but overseer, president, nay, 



36 THE WORKING CHURCH 

the servant, of his church, and of him whom 
he calls Master. 

It is further to be borne in mind that no 
method, however perfect, is a substitute for 
power. The method is only the way in 
which the intellectual, emotional, volitional, 
spiritual power is manifest. Method without 
power is a locomotive on the track without 
steam. Power without method is the loco- 
motive with steam in the boiler and pipe, but 
derailed and ploughing its path to its own de- 
struction. Power manifests itself in method, 
but method is no substitute for power. Noth- 
ing takes the place of a real love on the part 
of the pastor for his people. If he fails to 
love them, the wisest of methods will succeed 
in winning only a partial success. If he loves 
them, his best methods will succeed more 
thoroughly by reason of his love ; and his 
indifferent methods will prove of some worth. 
" My little children, I write unto you that ye 
love one another." 



CHAPTER IV. 

AMONG THE CHILDREN. 




HILDREN should be constantly 
trained to love Jesus and to feel His 
love. Character sets early. Life- 
long tendencies are indicated in the first 
years. In his autobiography Darwin says 
that in his early boyhood he had a passion 
for collecting all sorts of things. Shells, 
seals, francs, coins, and minerals were among 
the objects he gathered. We have now fewer 
juvenile prodigies than formerly; but on the 
whole, character is fixed at an earlier age. 
The boy is not only the father of the man; 
the boy is the man. Evil begins to train its 
children early for its service. A boy of four- 
teen was lately hanged in Texas for murder. 
A lad whom I knew was accused of an infa- 
mous crime. When his mother was told of it 



38 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

she said, " Why, it is not possible ! Arthur is 
only a little baby." Children grow old in 
wickedness before they reach their teens, and 
while their mothers think they are as inno- 
cent as infants. Heathendom trains its chil- 
dren early. As soon as a pagan boy is strong 
enough to hold a flower in his hand, he is 
taught to lay that flower at the feet of an 
idol. The Roman Catholic Church trains its 
children early. Every mother entering the 
church with her baby in her arms puts the 
holy water upon the baby's forehead. 

From the earliest years children should be 
trained to love Jesus and to feel His love. 
Thomas Chalmers was so thoroughly trained 
in this respect, that from his first years he de- 
clared his purpose to become a minister. It 
is told that Edward Payson, when he was not 
more than three years old, would often weep 
under the preaching of the gospel, and would 
sometimes call his mother to his bedside to 
talk with him as to his soul's salvation. Such 
an experience is abnormal : it ought to be 
discouraged ; it is neither healthy nor health- 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 39 

ful. But it is normal for the boy of ten, 
like Leonard Woods, — the first Professor of 
Theology at Andover, where he continued 
for a quarter of a century, — to desire to be 
educated for Christian service. 

Tertullian made a remark which has be- 
come famous : " Man is naturally Christian. " 
In one respect the remark is false; in another 
it is true. The remark is true, in that the 
child heart loves Jesus. The child "takes to" 
Christ. The story of Christ's love awakens 
the child's loyalty ; and the story of Christ's 
death, the child's indignation. Next to the 
love for father and mother, nay, beyond, be- 
neath, and around the love for mother and 
for father, the child from the first should be 
taught to love Jesus. There should be no 
need of conversion and turning about. The 
curve in an ascending spiral, not a right 
angle, should represent the Christian's devel- 
opment. Children should never know the 
time when they did not love Jesus. The 
saintly Baxter was at one period greatly 
troubled because he could not recollect the 



40 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

hour when there was a gracious change in 
his character; but at last he discovered that 
education is as properly the means of grace 
as preaching. Thus he found comfort sweeter 
in his love for Christ, because he could not 
remember the time when he did not love 
Him. 

A distinguished clergyman now living 
writes in charming style of his early Chris- 
tian life. Such a story as he tells should be 
far more common than it is : — 

" My earliest memory is a religious memory. In 
my home the entire atmosphere was persistently 
religious. I learned to read so young that I have 
no recollection whatever of the process, and the 
daily reading of the Bible was as much a part of my 
young life as the daily breakfast. With sweet and 
steady pressure, and at the same time with a pres- 
sure wonderfully wise, my mother was always lead- 
ing, referring, forcing me to Jesus. I can think of 
no time when, because of her enwrapping teaching, 
I did not recognize myself a sinner, and did not, in 
a boyish way at least, look to Christ as Saviour. 
Her steady test for things by which she taught me 
to decide concerning this or that was, Would it 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 4 1 

please Jesus ? When I had done wrong, — and I 
did wrong by no means infrequently, — though I 
might repent toward her and ask her forgiveness, 
I was always taught that the finishing of the matter 
had never come until I had personally sorrowed 
toward and asked forgiveness of the Lord. So 
Christ hung as a sun steadily and consciously to 
myself in all my childish horizon. To please my 
parents was a sweet thing, I was taught ; but to 
please Christ and my parents for His sake, a 
sweeter thing. Yet there was no cant in all this, 
nor the least sanctimoniousness. It seemed to be 
all as natural and right to me as breathing. So, 
really, I cannot remember the time when I did not 
look upon the Lord Jesus as my personal Saviour, 
did not trust Him, did not recognize and accept 
it as the task of life to serve Him." 

The proposition, therefore, is evident that 
children should be constantly trained to love 
Jesus and to feel His love for them. 

If any period of half a dozen years in the 
life of a child be more critical, religiously, 
than any other, it is the six years follow- 
ing the age of ten. At this age the boys 
and girls usually are graduated from the 
primary department of the Sunday-school 



42 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

into its intermediate or higher department. 
If they have received proper instruction, 
many of them are at this time Christians. 
If I need not seek evidence beyond my own 
early boyhood to prove the doctrine of total 
depravity, I also need not seek evidence 
beyond the limits of my first pastorate, to 
prove that the hearts of many young children 
are inclined to accept Jesus as their guide, 
helper, Saviour. They, at an early age, know- 
somewhat of the evil of sin. They appreci- 
ate, even more than many who are their 
seniors, the tenderness of the love of Christ. 
They affirm their love of Jesus. They are 
willing to promise to try to be and to do as 
they believe He desires. Their homes and 
school-rooms and play-grounds bear witness 
to the reality of their endeavor. Their wills 
are moved, their intellects are also enlight- 
ened, and their feelings touched. " Except 
ye become as little children : " they have 
no need of becoming ; they are little chil- 
dren. They are essential Christians. They 
have not an "experience" such as their elders 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 43 

have. They ought not to have ; they can- 
not have it. But they are able to endure 
the test which our Lord applied to Peter at 
the close of His divine mission, "Lovest thou 
me ? " They are in kind as truly Christians 
at the age of ten, after a few years of proper 
instruction, as they are at the age of seventy; 
as the child who is studying his " first 
reader" is as really reading as the scholar 
who is perusing Gibbon's polished and well- 
rounded sentences. 

But with children thus circumstanced and 
inclined at the age of ten, the following 
four or five years work tremendous changes. 
They have fallen from grace. They have be- 
come, if not hard and hardened, indifferent 
and careless. Their attention to Christian 
truth is not easily secured. The heart is not 
quite so soft as before. They reason, inquire, 
in a way doubt. The fact is, their suscepti- 
bility to spiritual impressions has diminished. 
They feel the downward gravitation of the 
world, the flesh, and the devil. Their love 
for Christ is either dying or dead. 



44 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

In this common condition the problem 
which the church has set before it is this : 
to keep these child-Christians from falling 
from their first love between the critical 
years of ten and sixteen ; to foster the 
spirit of Christian character; to strengthen 
the weak hope ; to educate and discipline 
the imperfect faith. For the solution of 
this serious problem we may look for aid 
to the Sunday-school teacher. If he is 
wise, faithful, earnest, we do not look to 
him in vain. But in too many instances he 
fails to have the power or the time essential 
for this work. It is a surprise, in view of 
the lack of proper method in the choice 
of teachers in the Sunday-school, that the 
Sunday-school accomplishes so great results. 
As now constituted, however, the Sunday- 
school in its main department is seldom nur- 
turing to a natural maturity the Christian 
character which is born before the child 
reaches the age of ten. 

In this failure, what can be done ? I write 
out of my own experience when I say that 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 45 

a special class should be formed of those 
young Christians, and that special instruc- 
tion and guidance should be given them. 
This instruction and guidance should be com- 
mitted to one most able to give it. This one 
may be the pastor, or it may not be. If it is 
not he, he should discover some other person 
qualified to perform this duty. I think I may 
say that the pastor will usually find that it is 
wise to intrust this labor to other hands ; and 
yet these other hands he may think it well 
specially to train for this important service. 
This instruction should consist of a sys- 
tematic presentation of the great truths of 
Christ. It should be systematic, taking up 
in order the central doctrines and themes 
of the Bible. It should be, it must be, to se- 
cure favorable results, attractive, — attractive 
in the person of the teacher and attractive 
in its mejthods. It should be thorough ; for 
children will receive and appreciate, be it 
properly illustrated, Christian teaching far 
more profound than is commonly credited to 
them. Such a class should meet on some 



46 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

week-day, after the close of the exercises 
of the public school, and should be held each 
week for certain periods of each year. 

With the methods and the results of such 
teaching, I am already somewhat acquainted. 
Year by year I have seen a class of boys 
and girls grow from a membership of forty 
to a membership of three hundred. I have 
seen these boys and girls listening intently 
to the presentation of the historic facts and 
truths of the Bible. I have seen this class 
made so attractive that scores of children 
would run from the public school-room to 
the church school-room in order to lose no 
moment of the short hour. I have seen 
this interest aroused and maintained by the 
power of a strong and living personality 
rather than by extraneous aids. I know this 
teaching to be systematic and thorough. I 
have seen examination papers in writing of 
these boys and girls that were a wonder in 
their revelation of the appreciation of the na- 
ture and duties of the Christian life. I have 
been made glad in receiving many of those 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 47 

thus trained into the membership of the 
church, and have daily rejoiced in beholding 
the good confessions they witnessed at home 
and school. The church may aid in such 
training of children by receiving them into 
its membership. I know of no help so great 
which the home may receive, I know of no 
help so great which the child may receive 
beyond the walls of the home, as the help 
which the church may thus give. Such a 
confession in the church of Christ brings to 
the surface and crystallizes all the child's love 
for his Saviour. It furnishes him with a high 
exterior standard of conduct ; it puts him in 
that direct line of which the end, as is also 
the beginning, is life eternal. 

The Christian child needs the church to 
make his Christian love vivid, positive, ag- 
gressive. The Christian parent needs the 
church to aid in the Christian training of 
his Christian child. The church needs the 
Christian child, that its altars may never lack 
for Samuels, as its ministering priests. If 
the church is a family, it must specially care 



48 ' THE WORKING CHURCH 

for its children. If the church is Christ's 
church, it must specially seek to bless those 
whom He blessed. If the church is ever to 
rejoice in its millennial triumph, it will in- 
clude children, even little children, among 
its disciples and apostles. 

Various objections are urged to children 
becoming members of a church. These 
objections, however, are in large measure 
founded upon misconceptions of the need 
of the child or of the duty of the church. 
One of the more common of these objections 
is that the child does not fully understand 
the meaning of a public confession. It is true 
that a child does not fully understand this 
step ; but who of us, of whatever age, does 
fully understand? Are we not often asking 
our children to take important steps, the 
meaning of which is not fully understood? 
How much does a child need to understand 
to join the church ? How much does an 
adult need to understand ? Has the reader 
fathomed more than a small part of the doc- 
trines of the creed ? Who has reached final 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 49 

conclusions in all his thinking ? Has God's 
Word ceased to break forth with new light ? 
What did Philip require of the eunuch as a 
condition of baptism ? u And the eunuch 
said, See, here is water ; what doth hinder 
me to be baptized ? and Philip saith, If thou 
believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. 
And he answered and said, I believe that 
Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Philip 
baptized him. 

A class of girls in the church was re- 
cently asked to write out their answers to 
the question, " What is it to be a Christian ? " 
Among the answers were these : A girl of 
fifteen said, " It is to believe that the Saviour 
is able to save us, that He will forgive us ; 
it is to love the Saviour and try to do His 
will." A girl of thirteen replied, " To be a 
Christian is to love and serve the Lord, and 
try to do as much as you can, and live as 
near Him as you can." A girl also of thirteen 
said, '"It is to try to be good and do good, 
and to love Jesus Christ." A girl of fifteen 
answered, " To be a Christian is to love Jesus 

4 



50 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

Christ with your whole heart, and to yield 
your will to Him completely." One of thir- 
teen gave this answer, which is remarkable 
as a philosophical definition of what it is to 
be a Christian : "To give one's whole being 
to the will of God." 

It is not to be said that children do not 
understand more of wickedness than their 
parents desire. Children do understand more 
of goodness and more of Christian truth 
than their parents give them credit for. 

It is also urged as an objection to children 
joining the church, that they may not hold 
out. A little girl said to me recently, " Why, 
if I join the church, I may go back." " Yes," 
I replied, " and you may go back if you 
don't join the church; the church should be 
a help to keep you from going back." Do all 
those who are not children hold out ? I might 
select fifty boys and girls from the Sunday- 
school whom I thought suitable candidates 
for church-membership ; I might select fifty 
men and women from the congregation 
whom I thought also suitable candidates. 



AMONG THE CHILDREN. 5 I 

After five years I am confident I should find 
a larger proportion of the children than of 
the adults maintaining their Christian faith. 

Two or three principles or methods under- 
lie the Christian character and the church- 
membership of children. One is that the 
Christian life is of the individual charac- 
ter : being of the individual character, it is 
chiefly concerned with the feelings and the 
will : in children the feelings are strong and 
the will easily influenced : therefore, without 
full intellectual apprehension, the Christian 
life may begin in children. 

The second principle is that the Christian 
life is a growth, not a manufactured product ; 
a flower, not a machine : therefore, for its 
purest and noblest development, it must 
begin early. 

It is also evident that for the Christian 
life of children parents are in a large measure 
responsible. The method, as some one has 
said, is to " make a young person love you, 
and then simply being in his presence will 
make him what you want him to be. ,, The 



52 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

" experience " of the child so far as he is 
concerned is slight, but it is important 
so far as the mother or the father is con- 
cerned. As one has said, writing of his 
mother : " She put my little hand in the 
hand of the Lord Jesus. I did not know 
what else to do, and so I clasped His hand, — 
that was all. But if I ever stand yonder in 
the great shining, about the sole reason, on 
the human side, will be — my mother. God 
bless her ! " 




CHAPTER V. 

AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 

DEPARTMENT of the administra- 
tion of the church in which the 
pastor finds it well to have peculiar 
interest, is the work among those who are 
universally known as the "young people. " 
The " young people " have within a genera- 
tion come to occupy a most important place 
in the church. To work among them for 
their conversion and edification, to work for 
them fitting them for Christian service, and to 
work through them in the manifold endeavor 
of the church, no one is better qualified than 
the pastor. The systematic organization of 
this body for work in the church is to be 
greatly desired. These young men and 
women usually lend themselves more easily 
than their elders to organization and to organ- 



54 * THE WORKING CHURCH 

ized effort. Many of them desire Christian 
work. They have fewer prejudices and less 
individuality. They are not heavily laden 
with the cares of business or of home. They 
are less conservative, more progressive. They 
also need the Christian training of systematic 
planning for, and systematic doing of, service. 
For the good of the church as well as their 
own good, this organization is to be fostered. 
Many a pastor finds that the most prompt, 
the most thorough, the most earnest, the 
most persistent, and the most satisfactory 
work of his church is done through the young 
people. They are his aids quite as truly as 
the members of the church committee. 

This general movement among and for 
young people has taken positive shape in the 
Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavor. Its great growth justifies its wisdom 
of administration, as well as proves its need. 
In seven years it has increased to include 
more than five thousand organizations, em- 
bracing some two hundred and fifty thousand 
members. It is simply the young people of 



AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 55 

the individual church associated for the pur- 
pose of promoting their Christian growth and 
of bringing those not Christians to Christ. 
Its methods are simple. Frequent testimony 
in the weekly meeting is emphasized. At- 
tendance at this service is obligatory. Social, 
literary, and musical interests are grouped 
about the central principles of Christian 
growth and Christian service. Committees on 
various departments — such as the Sunday- 
school, the visiting of the sick and the crimi- 
nal, the introduction of strangers, the care for 
the prayer-meetings — are selected. A full 
corps of the other customary officers forms a 
part of the society. Membership is of two 
classes, — the active, embracing those who 
believe themselves to be Christians ; and the 
associate, including those who may wish to 
enjoy certain privileges of the Society but are 
not prepared to be known as Christians. 

So familiar are the general principles and 
methods of this movement, that it is unneces- 
sary for me to say more in exposition. But it 
may be fitting to add that in every church in 



$6 THE WORKING CHURCH, 

which the Society of Christian Endeavor has 
been established, it has proved to be the 
most satisfactory way for organizing its 
young people for Christian work. In not a 
few churches it has given birth to a prayer- 
meeting for young people ; in others it has 
quadrupled the attendance and increased the 
interest of this meeting; in others it has 
proved to be the most laborious and the most 
effective of all the means and methods of 
church administration. In churches in which 
this general form of work among the young 
people is well planned and executed, it may 
or may not be wise at once to transfer a 
prosperous young people's organization into 
a society of this distinctive name ; but it is 
certainly true that God has not in this gen- 
eration in America given a wiser method for 
the doing of Christian work for and through 
young people. Every church which is not 
thus organized among its younger members 
is neither availing itself of its strength nor 
entering into its waiting opportunities. 
For the Young People's Society of Chris- 



AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 57 

tian Endeavor, or any organization of young 
people, is not an association outside of the 
church. Undoubtedly any such alliance may 
be so formed or conducted as to give the 
impression of either rivalry or antagonism to 
the church. But it ought never to be so 
formed or conducted. It is simply the church 
at work among, and for, and through its 
younger members. It is not to be doubted 
that this peril exists. It is the peril of clique 
and faction. It is a peril which may result 
in direct opposition to the church. The 
younger members, feeling that the older have 
little interest in their work, go by them- 
selves ; the older members, thinking that 
their juniors prefer to be by themselves, do 
not frequent their devotional or social meet- 
ings. Such a division is lamentable. It 
should always be avoided; it should, when 
existing, be healed. The younger members 
should know that the church is more than 
their society, and that of the church their 
society is a part or function. The older 
members, by sympathy most cordial and by 



58 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

endeavors for co-operative service, should 
prove that they rejoice in the activity and 
aggressiveness of their junior brethren. 

In the organization of young people for 
church work, the religious basis must invari- 
ably be strongly maintained. No foundation, 
social, literary, musical, aesthetic, is either 
worthy or enduring. The young people 
themselves will accept of a constitution and 
method which are profoundly religious. Many 
of them even demand that a pre-eminently 
Christian character prevail in all their or- 
ganized efforts. There is no need of hiding 
the Dover's powder of Christian service in 
the raspberry jam of " socials" or debates. 
Many of them find that Christian service is 
not a bitter thing, but very sweetness itself. 
Therefore let the centre and circumference 
of all organizing and of every organization 
be devoutly Christian ; and on the radius 
may be put whatever of social enjoyment and 
of literary culture may seem fitting. 

The church is a spiritual institution. Its 
means and methods, therefore, are determined 



AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 59 

by its character as a spiritual institution. 
Yet, though spiritual, it should be free to use 
such indirect as well as direct agencies as 
may contribute to the salvation of men from 
sin. Some indirect agencies may be included 
in the work of young people. 

Among these agencies may be placed 
popular amusements. Shall the church pro- 
vide amusements for its young people ? Shall 
it countenance and nourish amusements which 
it would not be expedient to admit into any 
part of the church edifice ? Is it wise for it 
to erect a building in which games, such as 
for example billiards, may be played ? The 
answer to these and allied questions depends 
upon the influence of these diversions upon 
the moral character of the young people. It 
is the business of the church to minister to 
this moral character. If the church is so 
placed that it is necessary in order to catch 
young people to use a billiard cue as a fishing- 
rod, no hesitation should be felt in employ- 
ing such an instrument. Churches situated 
down town, and obliged to contend with 



6o THE WORKING CHURCH. 

saloons as rallying-places for young men, may 
at times find it wise to use these measures. 
The church should be willing to adopt any 
method which will keep the young people 
away from evil associations. If it cannot 
secure the whole loaf of Christian char- 
acter, let it secure the half-loaf of moral 
character ; if it cannot secure the half-loaf, 
let it endeavor to secure as large an absti- 
nence from evil as may be possible. The 
churches which bear the name of " People's 
Churches," and are attended by those less 
w r ell-to-do, usually can minister in more ways 
to their members than churches composed of 
the wealthier classes. Such churches fre- 
quently find it advantageous to establish 
reading-rooms and parlors for the use of their 
members. Classes, too, for the instruction 
of the young people in stenography, needle- 
work, and telegraphy prove of much worth. 
The church should have as one of its impor- 
tant aims the service of the young people of 
the church. This service should be as broad 
as the condition of the church and the need 



AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 6 1 

of the people allow. But in all service thus 
broad and sufficient, the highest aim should 
control the development of Christian man- 
hood and womanhood. 

The church working for its young folks 
should also put them to. work. The older 
young people should give their hands and 
hearts and brains to philanthropic efforts, such 
as the distribution of books and newspapers 
in hospitals and jails, the holding of services 
of song in the wards of hospitals, the estab- 
lishment and carrying on of Sunday-schools 
and gospel services in the mission stations of 
cities and in the schoolhouses in the country 
towns, and the holding of temperance meet- 
ings such as belong to the Bands of Hope for 
children. In all these and similar services 
the young people of the church may be 
made most efficient members of the working 
church. 




CHAPTER VI. 

AMONG BUSINESS MEN. 

VENTURE to recall a bit of per- 
sonal experience. I was calling on 
my parishioners who do business in 
the Chamber of Commerce. Among those to 
whom I paid my respects was Mr. A. Mr. A. 
is still under forty; he is reputed to have 
large wealth, and to be making large additions 
to it. His commercial interests are various. 
His mind is keen, alert, vigorous ; his heart 
is tender. He has all the best qualities of the 
best business man. As soon as I entered his 
office I saw that he was busy ; I also saw, I 
was assured, that he was glad to see me. 
Presently he said, " You do not know how 
much good just your coming to see us does." 
I ventured to suggest that his sense of cour- 
tesy was getting the better of his sense of 
truthfulness. But he replied : " No ; we men 



AMONG BUSINESS MEN 63 

are from morning to night engaged in a hard 
struggle. I know that every man who enters 
that doorway comes to make some money out 
of me ; and every man who enters that door- 
way I intend to make some money out of. 
It is more pleasant than I can tell you to see 
a man who you feel has some personal care 
for you, to see a man who looks upon you as 
something besides a mere money-maker, to 
see a man who represents something besides 
banks, real-estate syndicates, and elevator 
companies/' 

The earnestness of my friend's words and 
my knowledge of his character lead me to be- 
lieve in their sincerity. They suggest the 
need of a Christian mission and the need of 
special spiritual endeavor for business men. 
The working church has been doing much for 
various classes, — for the children, for the 
young men, for the young women, for the out- 
cast and wandering of every sort. It has 
not, however, made a solemn and aggressive 
attempt to reach the business men of middle 
age and of absorbing interests. The fact is, 



64 THE WORKING CHURCH 

these men are in greater need of the help of 
the church than any other class in the com- 
munity. They are in peril of the most prac- 
tical and personal materialism. They are ab- 
sorbed in business. Their business demands 
the best energies of brain, heart, body. They 
are laboring for the visible and the tangible. 
The unseen and the eternal are not naturally 
and immediately present. Wealth flows in 
upon them ; and they are in danger of either 
that avarice or that unwise prodigality which 
increasing riches may develop. Wealth flies 
from them ; and they are in danger of either 
that hard and rebellious or that despairing 
mood which misfortune may create. The 
constant attrition with human life may wear 
them into cold and polished hardness of char- 
acter. The knowledge of cunning rascali- 
ties may make them pessimists. They began 
business, intending to be masters of business ; 
they retire from business as its slaves. They 
are inclined to know nothing, to do nothing, 
but business. The commercial success which 
at first they regarded as a means to some 



AMONG BUSINESS MEN. 6$ 

noble purpose, they have come to consider 
as an ultimate aim in itself. 

Such is the condition of thousands of men 
in the offices and stores of the cities. What 
can the church do for them ? They are not 
remote from, or alien to, the church. Not a 
few are members of the church ; many occu- 
py their pews, with their families, on the Sab- 
bath. They are not specially troubled with 
difficulties as to doctrine. They believe the 
Bible, respect the church, and keep the Sab- 
bath. In answer to the* question of the duty 
of the church, I say : — 

The church should not denounce money or 
money-making. The church should rejoice 
in all the money which its members either 
have or gain. The church wants money, 
must have it. The great need of the church 
is men who will make money for its mission- 
ary work. The church and the ministry 
should discriminate, as did Christ and Paul, 
between money and the love of money, be- 
tween riches and the trust in riches. It is 
not money, but the love of money, which is 

5 



66 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

the root of all evil ; it is not the riches, but 
the trust in them, which keeps us from enter- 
ing heaven. Let the minister pray that his 
parishioners may make money; let him also 
pray that they may be kept from the love of 
money. 

It is also evident that neither the church 
nor the ministry can serve business men by 
courses of sermons or addresses upon methods 
of business. The counting-room can teach 
the pulpit far better upon this theme than the 
pulpit the counting-r6om. Sermons on spec- 
ulation — speculation in stocks or wheat or 
pork, speculations of any kind — are as valua- 
ble, and only as valuable, as Saint Anthony's 
sermon to the fishes. In many cases, too, 
they are contrary to that wise remark which 
Dr. Bellamy used to make to his students as 
to preaching : " Don't raise the Devil, young 
gentlemen, unless you can lay him." Many 
ministers cannot lay the devils which their 
sermons on speculation are liable to raise. 

Turning to the positive side, I venture to 
suggest three methods that may be of worth : 



AMONG BUSINESS MEN 67 

Spiritual preaching. The most worldly 
man prefers spiritual preaching to worldly 
preaching. The merchant absorbed in busi- 
ness is sick at heart Sunday morning when 
his business, to which he thought he bade 
good-by at five o'clock the night before, again 
appeals to his ears in his pastor's sermon. 
He may rightfully claim in such an instance 
that his minister is robbing him of a part of 
his Sabbath rest. Ministers labor under a 
lamentable error when they think that college 
professors of natural history or of geology or 
of political economy want to hear sermons on 
Darwinism, or on the consistency of Evolution 
with the first chapters of Genesis, or on anar- 
chism. The error is no less lamentable when 
ministers think that manufacturers and mer- 
chants, bankers and lawyers, want to be 
preached to as manufacturers and as mer- 
chants, as bankers and as lawyers. They 
want to be treated as men, — as men who 
have souls, as men who are tempted, as men 
who want all the help possible to resist temp- 
tation and to win noblest characters. 



68 THE WORKING CHURCH, 

Preaching, therefore, being spiritual, should 
follow the fundamental lines of thought, doc- 
trine, teaching. It should embrace the great 
themes : sin in all forms — the self-deception 
of the sinner, its self-perpetuating power, the 
moral disintegration of the soul — in which 
it has special allurement or power over the 
business man ; God in all those qualities 
and elements in which He is made known ; 
human responsibility, for one's self and for 
one's fellows. But I know whereof I speak 
when I affirm that the more closely the min- 
ister can centre his preaching in Christ, the 
more thoroughly he will please the un-Chris- 
tian as well as the Christian business men of 
his congregation. No other theme has such 
power ; no other theme has such variety ; no 
other theme has sources of such satisfaction. 
A great court preacher, preaching before the 
Queen of England, chose as his subject : 
" Religion in common life/' The sermon be- 
came a favorite of Queen Victoria. Let the 
minister of the most worldly congregation se- 
lect the most spiritual of subjects, — Christ 



AMONG BUSINESS MEN 69 

himself, — and he will not only do the most 
good, but also give the greatest satisfaction. 

I would also beg to suggest that ministers 
should not fail to come into the closest per- 
sonal relationship with the business men to 
whom they preach. It were well if ministers 
were even more anxious to call on the men of 
their churches at their places of business than 
on the women in their homes. If a minister 
is at all worthy of being known, the bank pres- 
idents and the plumbers, the lawyers and the 
carpenters, want to know him. The pastor 
should get down close to the hearts of the 
rich as well as of the poor men of his church. 
Not in gushing, not in the manner of the 
cloth, not in either fawning or patronage, but 
in simple and true manliness, let him know, 
and be known by, the busy business men. 
Let the men know his life as well as hear his 
truth. 




CHAPTER VII. 

FROM THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 

CHURCH is not a business concern, 
though in certain ways it is to be 
managed on business principles. It 
is not a business concern, for its purpose is 
not to see how it can get the most money or 
hire the cheapest help. Its purpose is not to 
save money or to secure the largest surplus. 
Its purpose is not to make its income equal 
to its expenses. The pecuniary motives of 
the business concern have no place as aims 
in the church. For the church is a spiritual 
institution. Its purpose is. moral, ethical, 
Christian. Its purpose is to continue the 
work begun by Christ, to turn men from sin to 
righteousness. Its purpose relates to human 
character. And yet the church has a financial 
side. Though it is not a business institution, 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 7 1 

it is in certain respects to be managed in a 
business way. Though its purpose is not to 
make income equal expense, yet in every 
church income should equal expense. The 
general principles of economy, efficiency, and 
honesty prevailing in successful business 
should prevail in the management of the 
church. In securing such principles, it seems 
wise for Christian business men to be the 
leaders in its financial interests. With their 
Christianity, they will manage affairs as if 
the church were a church ; with their mer- 
cantile methods, they will make the manage- 
ment economical and efficient. 

It is not wise usually, it seems to me, for 
ministers to take an active interest in the 
pecuniary affairs of their churches. In some 
cases it seems necessary for ministers to have 
an important part in this work. In many 
small churches the deacons and elders leave 
the pecuniary affairs of the church, as they 
do the spiritual, to the pastor. They ought 
not so to be remiss in their duty ; the min- 
ister ought to cause them to take up this 



72 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

task belonging to them, and the doing of it 
would be found to be a means of grace. But 
in many large churches, of course, the min- 
ister not only has no need of being especially 
concerned in these financial matters, but also 
he ought not to be so concerned. Men are 
in the church with greater ability than his for 
such administration. A former pastor of one 
of the principal churches in New York City 
said to me that about one half of his time 
was taken up with the pecuniary affairs of 
the parish. His ministry was not successful, 
and it is not a surprise that it was a failure. 
Time and strength devoted to financial admin- 
istration were time and strength subtracted 
from spiritual efficiency. 

The minister, though having no active part 
in the financial management of his parish, 
should yet be deeply interested in that man- 
agement ; for the success or failure of his 
ministry may in a large degree be dependent 
upon the success or failure of the financial 
execution. He should also look upon the 
failure or success of the financial management 



• THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 73 

of the church as a symptom of the interest 
or lack of interest in his work. It is to be 
said, however, that even business men do not 
employ in the management of their churches 
the same wisdom which they employ in the 
management of their own mercantile inter- 
ests. A prominent church in a university 
town, in its love for its departing pastors, 
borrowed upon one occasion five thousand 
dollars and upon another occasion ten thou- 
sand dollars as a farewell gift. It is not 
wise to put a mortgage upon your principal 
property for the sake of making a large 
present to a friend. A church in New York 
City some years ago, out of love also for its 
pastor, presented him with a sum of money to 
meet the expenses of a trip to Europe. This 
sum was not the result of gifts, but was 
raised through a mortgage upon the church 
edifice. Certainly such methods are not the 
methods that men employ in business. The 
church has its financial side, and its financial 
interests should be administered with effi- 
ciency, economy, and honesty; and it will 



74 THE WORKING CHURCH 

usually be found that the business men in a 
church are the best fitted thus to administer. 

It is frequently said that churches are too 
expensive ; that the cost of being a member 
of a respectable church is so great that many 
respectable people are kept from affiliating 
themselves with such a congregation. It is 
complained that pew rentals are too high ; or 
if the pew rentals are not too high, that the 
demands for missions and missionary work 
are too frequent and too heavy. In some 
churches a basis for the charge may exist. 
But the reason of the complaint lies quite 
as much in the fault of the one complain- 
ing as in the churches themselves. In all 
churches are pews of which the rental is so 
cheap that no person earning ordinary wages 
should hesitate to hire them. The rental of 
a single pew in some churches for a year 
amounts to several hundred dollars. But such 
pews are very few, and are taken by those 
who are presumed to be able to pay the thou- 
sands. But even in such churches the ma- 
jority of the pews can be had for a few 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. J$ 

score of dollars ; and a large number of them 
can be had so cheap that a single sitting costs 
its occupant only a few cents each week. 

The charge of the too great expensiveness 
of churches is of course to be viewed in rela- 
tion to what one receives for the expense. 
One receives from this financial relation to 
his church more than first thought might 
suggest. He receives the right to his sitting 
for two services each Sabbath. He also has 
a special right to all the meetings of the 
church of prayer, of social intercourse, of 
musical and literary culture. In relation to 
what he receives, the cost is very small. 

The chief element in the cost of the admin- 
istration of churches is, of course, the salary 
of the pastor. The salaries of a few pastors 
in this country are large, but of only a few. 
The number even of pastors having more 
than four thousand dollars each year is not 
large. In one sense a minister should re- 
ceive exactly what he earns; his wages should 
be determined by those same laws of political 
economy that determine the wages of any 



?6 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

wage-earner. In another sense he cannot 
receive too much. What does the minister 
give to his church ? He does not give his 
brain merely, he does not give his physical 
strength only, — gifts which most men bring 
to their work ; but he also gives his heart, 
himself, his all. The relation between a 
minister and his church is more akin to that 
between a husband and wife than to the re- 
lation between employee and employer. A 
church, therefore, in one sense should not 
look upon their minister as a hired servant, 
but as one to whom, in return for his great 
gifts to them, they are to give all that he is 
able to receive. I take it that this is the 
relation existing between Mr. Spurgeon and 
the church of which he is pastor. A promi- 
nent officer of that church told me that Mr. 
Spurgeon was usually supposed to receive 
five thousand dollars a year, but that he drew 
whatever he wished. The church trusted 
him, and he trusted the church. With cer- 
tain ministers this would not be possible ; for, 
as was remarked of a prominent minister in 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. JJ 

an American city, " he would," said the 
treasurer of this church, "break the Bank 
of England." 

But the charge of expensiveness of the 
churches is not based simply upon the paro- 
chial item, but also upon the demands for 
what is usually termed benevolence. The 
contribution box is looked upon as the sym- 
bol of this exhausting process. The notice 
from the pulpit for the collection is regarded 
as a thief regards arrest. In this same line 
of expensiveness, also, the pastor is supposed 
to be, through his personal endeavors, an es- 
pecial factor. With the subscription paper in 
hand he goes to individuals in office and 
home, asking for money either for building a 
new chapel in the city, or to endow a college 
in Dakota, or to raise a testimonial fund for 
a retiring deacon, or to increase the annual 
offering for the cause of foreign or home 
missions. 

Of such endeavors for benevolence, it seems 
to me that many people have a false and 
wrong idea. As a rule, people are not to be 



78 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

urged to give. As a rule, people do desire 
information as to Christian work. They are 
willing that such opportunities of Christian 
service should be pointed out to them ; and 
when such information has been given and 
such opportunities have been pointed out, the 
time has come for their action. The minister 
has done his whole duty in giving the infor- 
mation, in indicating the opportunity. The 
subsequent action belongs to his people ; and 
their doing, or failing to do, their duty is a 
question for themselves as servants of the 
Most High. People should constantly have 
placed before them opportunities for Chris- 
tian giving and for Christian service. Such 
opportunities it would be difficult to present 
too frequently. But the minister should re- 
frain from either speaking or acting in such 
a way as to give the impression of undue 
urgency. It also seems to me that it is well 
for a minister to refrain from soliciting per- 
sonally contributions for Christian work. The 
temptations to such solicitation are frequently 
very strong. Some pastors have much sue- 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 79 

cess in such endeavors. A prominent min- 
ister of the Presbyterian Church himself 
raises the debt which afflicts the parish, or 
secures the money for a new organ. But, on 
the whole, it would be wiser for him to have a 
great interest in any such attempt, — to be, if 
one chooses, the heart of it, or even the heart 
and the brain of it, but not either the hands 
or the feet. Serving thus personally, he is in 
peril of lessening his spiritual influence over 
the character of his parishioners, for the sake 
of a financial gain. Such a peril he should 
never be willing to run. To his pastor a pa- 
rishioner may not infrequently be inclined to 
give a larger subscription than he feels he 
ought. Such a subscription is far from being 
a means of grace to the subscriber. In gen- 
eral, more money will be given by a church 
for benevolent work if the pastor does not 
take a personal concern in its solicitation. 

In the business management of the church, 
as in business management of every sort, 
great advantage is to be found in frequent 
and frank conference of officers and pastor. 



80 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

If the pastor is inclined to emphasize too 
strongly the pecuniary side of his work, the 
officers should very plainly tell him his mis- 
take, and he should be willing to bear the crit- 
icism and correct the fault. If the pastor sees 
in the church elements or conditions which 
he believes are antagonistic to its spiritual 
or other interests, he likewise should be very 
free to communicate his impressions to the 
officers ; and they also should bear with 
Christian charity the criticism, and endeavor 
to remedy the fault thus indicated. Church 
quarrels usually begin in a lack of free fra- 
ternal communication between the officers. 
Such communication should be very full and 
broad and intimate. It is thus that estrange- 
ments are avoided ; and with the avoidance of 
estrangements, ecclesiastical quarrels would 
also be prevented. 

In the business management of a church, 
as well as in management of other kinds, it 
is important for the pastor so to bear himself 
towards his parishioners that he will appeal 
to their highest needs. He will approach 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 8 1 

them upon the highest planes of conduct and 
character. He will not allow himself to give 
the impression that he desires to make 
money out of them, or that his purpose in 
being pastor of a church is pecuniary. He 
will give the impression that he comes seek- 
ing, not theirs, but them. In this approach 
to men in their highest needs, he will be 
frank and hearty. As he will not suffer his 
parishioners to lose respect for him, so also 
he will not suffer himself to lose his self- 
respect. He will approach the members of 
his church as a Christian man having the 
highest aim, — to serve in the noblest ways 
those whose spiritual nurture is in no small 
degree committed to his keeping. 

In this endeavor to foster the interests of 
his church, he will, above all else, love its 
members. Love is the universal solvent. If 
the minister fails to love, he should cease to 
be a minister. If he loves his church, his 
church will love him ; if he fails to love his 
church, his church also will fail to love him. 
His church is usually worthy of his love. If 

6 



82 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

he love it, he can, it may be said, persuade it, 
as a church, to almost any line of ecclesiasti- 
cal conduct. The history of churches shows 
that the churches in which the pastorates 
are long and successful are those in which 
the pastor has loved his church with a fulness 
of affection next to the love for wife and for 
child ; and the churches in which the pastor- 
ates have been short and have not succeeded, 
are those in which the pastor has not loved 
his church. 

In the spirit of love, the pastor will be 
saved from the not uncommon fault of antag- 
onizing the members of the church and the 
church itself. It is never wise to antagonize 
in church life. If a fundamental principle 
is under discussion, the minister must of 
course make known his opinion, and make 
his opinion impressive by wise means ; but 
he should never suffer himself to be led into 
an antagonistic mood over matters of trifling 
importance. Some ministers seem to have a 
peculiar facility for catching upon some snag 
in the current of ecclesiastical life, and there 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 83 

resting. The snag, to be sure, is small, but it 
holds them just as firmly from all advance 
in Christian service as if they were ashore. 
If a minister is to antagonize his church, let 
there be chosen a point worthy of antag- 
onism. If there is to be a church " quarrel," 
let the " quarrel M be over some important 
point that is worthy of a battle. And as a 
rule, the minister is to bear himself above all 
parties ; he is to mind his own business, 
which means that he is to do his own work 
and to do it well, and also not to meddle in 
the work of others. 

Such a position, free from antagonism, may 
be gained by a right intellectual and moral 
perspective of the work of the church. In 
the church some work, some methods, some 
plans, are of prime importance ; others are of 
secondary or third-rate importance. Let not 
the minister, for the sake of adopting meth- 
ods that are of third-rate importance, suffer 
methods that are of secondary importance to 
fail. Let him not, for the sake of accomplish- 
ing work of secondary worth, allow work of 



84 THE WORKING CHURCH 

first-rate importance to suffer. Let his view 
of truth be broad and accurate, adjusted to 
the real conditions. 

Furthermore, in the management of the 
church, it is well for the minister to work 
along long lines. Let him ever keep his end 
in view. Let him know the discipline of 
patience. Knowing that the end is of su- 
preme importance, let him be willing to 
change his methods, his means, his measures. 
Let the principles of ministerial service be 
laid broad, deep, and firm. Let the applica- 
tion of these principles be made in all wisdom 
and charity. These principles, with such ap- 
plication, will eventually become realized. If, 
for instance, that matter which at times dis- 
tresses every minister — the introduction of 
a better hymn-book into the Sabbath services 
— perplexes him, let him not be in any special 
hurry to change it. The time may not be 
ripe. Many people do not want it. He may 
give himself the reasonable assurance that 
the service is not suffering serious loss by 
reason of the use of the present book Let 



THE BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW. 85 

him, however, lay down the principle that 
the service of music in the church should 
be of the most elevated character; in due 
time this principle will become so prevalent 
among the people that they themselves will 
demand a change in the hymn-book. The 
adage, " A place for everything and every- 
thing in its place," may with a slight change 
be applied to time : A time for everything 
and everything in its time. The minister 
holding the supreme purpose of his ministry 
strongly, will, with waiting and righteous en- 
deavor, find that purpose achieved. 

And though all this be true, he should 
withal, in the managing of the interests of 
his parish, be a man of convictions. For his 
own sake and for the sake of his church, he 
should have, and also be willing to manifest, 
the courage of his convictions; manifesting 
this courage, of course, with all courtesy, and 
with a full regard for the convictions of his 
brethren, but holding his own as he holds his 
life. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 

jN the working church are two agencies 
deserving particular mention, — the 
Sunday-school and the mid-week 
service. These agencies are related to our 
special subject as the means or methods 
through which the church labors. 

The aim of the Sunday-school is the aim 
of the church, — the turning of men to right- 
eousness through love for Christ. In secur- 
ing this aim. it is of prime importance that 
the atmosphere, the tone, of the school be 
spiritual. The present is an age of machin- 
ery in ecclesiastical work. The peril is, there- 
fore, that the spiritual will become eliminated 
from the life of the church. No display of 
knowledge as to Biblical cosmogony or geog- 
raphy or history should be permitted to 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 87 

impede spiritual activity. Much less should 
any endeavor for securing a large number 
of members or constancy of attendance be 
allowed to thwart the gaining of the ultimate 
end. Not a few schools seem like vast ma- 
chine-shops in which processes and methods 
and tools are more manifest than the pro- 
ducts, good and great as the products may 
be. Schools should be a garden in which 
the still atmosphere of love, the still shin- 
ing of the sun of God's peace on the soil 
of human life, should each contribute to the 
growth and nurture of the individual Chris- 
tian character. 

The supreme purpose of the Sunday-school, 
however, is more vitally dependent upon its 
teacher than upon its general influence. 
Through the Sunday-school teacher the 
church works most directly and powerfully 
and effectively upon the individual. The 
opportunity that is open to the Sunday- 
school teacher is marvellous. No such op- 
portunity for the influencing of the character 
of children is found outside the home. Most 



88 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

boys and girls do not gain much knowledge 
in the hour of the school. But the effect 
that a noble Christian man or woman has 
as the teacher of a boy or girl is a mighty 
factor in the moral character and life of that 
child. It is an influence somewhat akin to 
the influence that the Earl of Shaftesbury ex- 
erted upon a depraved man. " What did his 
Lordship say to you, that made you a reformed 
man ? " was asked. " Oh, he did n't say 
much," was the reply. "He just sat down 
by my side and said, 'Jack, we will make a 
man out of you yet.' " It was the upward 
gravitation of Christian manhood that helped 
Jack. Such celestial attractions belong to 
the character of the Sunday-school teacher. 

The most important element of the Chris- 
tian character of the Sunday-school teacher 
as related to the character of the scholar, is 
his love for the scholar. No amount of Bib- 
lical knowledge, indeed, no degree of intel- 
lectual skill in presenting the truth, can sup- 
ply the lack of personal affection. If a 
teacher loves, his intellectual qualifications 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 89 

will become the more useful. This love can- 
not be simulated. Young human nature de- 
tects the counterfeit as quickly as the bank 
balances the depraved coin. The teacher is 
to be willing to sacrifice himself for his class. 
He is to respect . its members. He is to have 
a regard for them, not in the mass, but as 
individuals. " He calleth his own sheep by 
name." Having a love for each, he will also 
have a knowledge of each, in the home and 
the school, in the trials and the joys, in the 
past and the hopes of each. Furthermore, 
the teacher bearing this love to his pupils is 
to feel free to talk with each pupil as to his 
personal character. The teacher is to be the 
pastor of the class ; he is to be the shepherd 
of this little flock. He is to be the great aid 
of the parent in training each boy or each 
girl into Christian manhood or womanhood. 
It would be well if the teacher should be not 
less of a teacher but more of a pastor, and 
if each teacher should recognize himself as 
the pastor of the class. 

To the giving of such personal influence 



go THE WORKING CHURCH. 

most members of the Sunday-school easily 
offer themselves by reason of their age. A 
large proportion of the Sunday-school con- 
sists of young people. It is to the young 
people that we are to look for the beginning 
of the Christian life. In a recent meeting at 
St. Paul, a distinguished evangelist asked for 
the age of the conversion of those who were 
in the audience. The audience numbered 
about twelve hundred people. He first asked 
for those who became Christians after the age 
of fifty to rise, and one arose. He asked next 
for those who became Christians between the 
ages of forty and fifty to rise, and one rose. 
Then he asked in turn for those to rise who 
became Christians between thirty and forty, 
and twenty-one rose ; for those between 
twenty-five and thirty, and thirty-eight rose; 
for those between twenty and twenty-five, 
and one hundred rose ; for those who became 
Christians before twenty years of age, and six 
hundred rose. The larger share of the mem- 
bers of the. school consists of those who are 
below the age of twenty. It is the age of con- 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 9 1 

version. It is the period when the teacher's 
love and words have the strongest influence 
in leading boys and girls into the acceptance 
and confession of Christ. 

In the Sunday-school the working church 
works in and through its teacher. The re- 
mark of Garfield that the best college for him 
was a log, at one end of which sat President 
Hopkins and at the other James A. Garfield, 
is quite as true of spiritual discipline as of 
intellectual. The best church is that which 
has the best Sunday-school, and the best 
Sunday-school is that which has the best 
teacher. 

A second agency which the working church 
employs in its administration is the mid-week 
service. 

It has been said, by the best of recent Eng- 
lish historians, that the England of the Puri- 
tan was a nation of a book, and that book was 
the Bible, It may likewise be said that the 
mid-week service of the church is becoming 
the study of a book, and that book is the 
Bible. The prayer and conference meeting 



92 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

is undergoing a change, not of purpose, but 
of method. This meeting of a former gen- 
eration partook of the character of a lecture 
conducted by the pastor, deacons, and elders. 
Undoubtedly it had many advantages. If it 
were dull, as it not infrequently was to the, 
younger attendants, it certainly was edifying 
in Christian character to the more mature. 
Within the memory of many young Chris- 
tians, this type has become comparatively 
extinct. It has been followed by a meeting 
of quite a different character, in which the 
interest and profit were measured by the 
number who took part. The meeting was a 
meeting of testimony. The minister asked 
not for speeches, but for talks. The briefer 
were the more acceptable ; and the more per- 
sonal they were, the greater was their power. 
This form of meeting still conti»ues. It has 
much to commend it. It is a most important 
means of Christian growth. It suggests one 
cause of the marvellous growth of the Metho- 
dist Church. Its principle is the central prin- 
ciple in the admirable Christian Endeavor 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 93 

movement. It is of great usefulness in lead- 
ing men to the personal acceptance of Christ. 
It promotes the sense of personal responsi- 
bility. It is a constant and public confession 
of Christ. It develops the spiritual life. Its 
peril is the fostering of a mechanical and hol- 
low type of piety. Its danger lies in lacking 
intellectual and Scriptural substance. Its 
weakness consists in the development of self- 
consciousness. 

But this type of meeting is being already 
somewhat pushed aside by a third and in 
many respects a higher form. The central 
principle of this meeting is knowledge of 
the Scriptures. Its method is determined 
by the Bible. Its purpose is edification by 
the Word of God. This type of meeting is 
less a study of the Bible in its historical or 
ethical, doctrinal or theological relations, than 
in its practical. It seeks to know the mind 
of God as thus recorded upon all those sub- 
jects which relate to the upbuilding of in- 
dividual character. It is a Bible reading, 
conducted not by the leader, but by the 



94 THE WORKING CHURCH 

whole congregation. Various and diverse are 
the measures used in conducting it. The 
subject, announced in advance, may be an- 
alyzed, and different divisions assigned to 
different members for treatment. Slips, with 
certain passages of Scripture indicated, may 
be distributed among a dozen or more for 
reading when they are asked for. The leader 
should, at all events, hold the meeting in his 
own keeping, making the best of the com- 
ments, yet encouraging the habit of asking 
questions ; suggesting many passages of Scrip- 
ture, yet encouraging in every way the habit 
of independent study of the Word of God. 
The mid-week service of this type is in widely 
separated parts of the country becoming pop- 
ular. An eminent pastor said to me recently 
that he does not care to hear the voice of the 
attendants upon the prayer-meeting of his 
church, except as the truth of the Bible is 
indicated. In the church of which I am the 
minister, this method seems to work to the 
satisfaction and profit of all. It combines 
the advantages of the two forms of meetings 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 95 

to which I have alluded. It is in the best sense 
edifying, tending to build up the individual 
character in the simple truth of God. It 
promotes the sense of individual responsi- 
bility. It fosters constant public confession 
of Christ. It has warmth with light, appeal- 
ing to the feelings, yet having sufficient in- 
tellectual substance and vigor. It turns the 
eye of the soul away from itself to the Father 
and Saviour. This method succeeds in avoid- 
ing stupidity and dulness ; it stops the long 
and hopeless exhortations ; it gives movement 
and progress. 

If the prayer-meeting were more true to its 
name, there would be less cause for rejoicing 
over this evolution of the Bible meeting. But 
the prayer-meeting is not true to its name. It 
has become a " remarks " meeting, — remarks 
which are of some worth, but not of such a 
degree of worth as an hour in which a few 
score or a few hundred men and women of in- 
telligence and piety assemble together, ought 
to offer. But the Bible meeting demands 
and promotes piety and intelligence, quickens 



96 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

the heart and the brain, and endeavors to 
support sound practice with sound theory and 
to cause sound theory to eventuate in sound 
practice. 

The causes of this development or ten- 
dency are manifold ; but the chief cause is 
the same general movement which in theo- 
logical seminaries results in the introduction 
of Biblical theology into the course of study, 
which in the college is demanding that the 
Bible be made the object of special attention, 
which in the Sunday-school is contributing to 
the enlightened as well as reverent study of 
the Word of God. The age is an age of in- 
quiry. Systems of theology have use, — a use 
of prime importance. But this age of inquiry 
has gone back of theological treatises to that 
Book which is the fountain and source of 
whatever in those treatises is of enduring 
worth. 

It may prove of aid in conducting such 
Bible meetings as the mid-week service to 
bear in mind : — 

(i) That the subject considered should be 



TWO SPECIAL AGENCIES. 97 

drawn immediately from life. It should pos- 
sess the most interesting practical interest. 
The Bible fosters the choice of subjects of 
this character. It is concerned chiefly with 
human life and with God's relation to human 
life. 

(2) That all finical and allegorical inter- 
pretations should be avoided. Sound com- 
mon-sense should be predominant in all 
exegesis. Men of sense, Christian or un- 
christian, are repelled by interpretations 
which lack sense. 

(3) That topics chosen should be so broad 
as to lend themselves to easy division and to 
give that variety of personal reference and 
application which the Christian in the variety 
of his spiritual needs may require. 




CHAPTER IX. 

TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 

jJHE church is not primarily a social 
institution ; it is primarily a relig- 
ious institution. Yet the social re- 
lations of its members have a primary im- 
portance in the development of the church as 
a religious institution. The problem — simple 
in its terms, though far from simple in its so- 
lution — which each church has thus presented 
to itself, is, How can we attract strangers to 
our services ? How can we secure their in- 
troduction to ourselves and to our work ? 
How can we the most speedily and cour- 
teously cause them to be at home with us ? 
In answering these questions I can hardly 
hope to give more than suggestions. 

But before making any attempt, it may be 
said that those moving into a town and at- 



TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 99 

tending its church as strangers owe certain 
duties to that town and to that church as 
well as the town and the church to them. 
These duties are seldom considered. Pas- 
tors endeavor to open wide the doors of 
hospitality to strangers ; but they are pre- 
vented from driving or pushing strangers 
through the portals. They exhort the older 
members to be cordial ; but their sense of 
courtesy forbids their preaching to strangers 
upon the proper methods of accepting offers 
of hospitality. 

It is, we doubt not, the experience of the 
large majority of ministers that strangers fail 
in their duty to the church far more lament- 
ably than the church fails in its duty to them. 
In every congregation are a few who from 
the first morning they are shown to a pew 
are as ready to receive attention as the older 
members are prompt to bestow it. But nine 
tenths are far otherwise. They hold them- 
selves aloof from the church services. They 
occupy the rear seats at the prayer-meeting ; 
and before the pastor can reach the door they 



IOO THE WORKING CHURCH. 

are in the street. They receive a dozen calls 
at their homes, but wait months before re- 
turning them, even if they see fit to return 
them at all. In a large Congregational church 
of a large Massachusetts city two ladies made 
in a month seventy-five calls upon those who 
were comparative strangers. Of these seventy- 
five calls only one received its fitting and 
courteous acknowledgment. The wife of the 
pastor of a church less than a thousand miles 
from Boston has a rule of calling upon all 
new people coming into the congregation. 
The proportion of those who return her calls 
is about one to five. In that respect of which 
strangers usually complain bitterly of a church, 
they are themselves most derelict. Strangers 
are also, as a body, negligent in contributing 
to the financial support of a church as soon 
as they have decided to make it their relig- 
ious home. The writer knows of a lady who 
remarked, after attending a church for a year, 
that she was ashamed to be seen there longer 
without renting a seat. She felt as she ought 
to feel, — that as soon as possible after her en- 



TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 101 

trance she should hire a seat and pay for it. 
Many strangers are also inclined not to be 
faithful in contributing to the directly relig- 
ious welfare of the church. They do not let 
their light shine in the meetings of devotion 
as early as they ought. For Christian mod- 
esty, humility, and the passive virtues we 
have great reverence ; but they are ever to 
be distinguished from positive indifference 
or unassuming selfishness. 

What, then, is the duty of strangers to the 
church which is so seldom paid ? The duty 
is the very simple one of making themselves 
known ; of holding themselves ready to re- 
ceive attentions from the older members ; of 
declaring, in forms either direct or indirect, 
their desire to co-operate in the work of 
the church. They should come towards the 
church, not perhaps half-way in accepting 
its hospitalities, but at least a quarter way. 
They should not only manifest their willing- 
ness to receive the social courtesies of the 
members, but also their hearty purpose and 
wish to return all such courtesies in fitting 



102 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

ways. They should let their voice be heard 
in the service of song and of prayer. They 
should let the influence of their dollars be 
felt in the revenue of the parish and in the 
benevolent offerings. They should give peo- 
ple a chance to shake their hand. And all 
this they should do at the earliest possible 
day after making their home in the neighbor- 
hood of the church. 

In the swiftly changing communities of our 
cities the new members of any congregation 
soon find themselves the old members. With- 
in a decade one half of the ordinary congre- 
gation of the cities changes, and at the close 
of a period of twenty-five years hardly one 
member in ten remains. Much sooner, there- 
fore, than they would think, have the strangers 
become the established residents. Upon them, 
therefore, at an early day devolves the duty of 
showing those same rites of hospitality which 
were shown to them. They ought to forget, 
as soon as may be, that they are new members, 
and so become an integral part of the essential 
and aggressive forces of the church. 



TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 103 

For its social work the church should be 
furnished with a body of ushers, and also 
with a reception committee. The work of 
these gentlemen is limited to the more public 
services. It should, however, include the 
larger week-day prayer-meetings as well as 
the services of Sunday. The reception com- 
mittee should remain in or near the vestibule 
of the church at each public service to extend 
a greeting to strangers. Its members should 
know the congregation so well that they can 
at once detect those who are " new-comers. " 
The welcome thus given should be hospitable, 
courteous, neither effusive nor indifferent. It 
should, by both words and manner, indicate 
the heartiness of the greeting of those who 
are personal friends in Christ, even if they 
are not in each other. The member of the 
reception committee who thus welcomes them 
should at once say to the usher that the 
gentleman or lady is a stranger and would be 
glad to be shown to a seat. This semi-intro- 
duction may give the usher a sufficient occa- 
sion to speak a word of greeting. But in the 



104 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

coming of many strangers into a large con- 
gregation, any conversation is necessarily brief 
and fragmentary. It is not, therefore, unfit- 
ting for the usher to adopt some more satis- 
factory method for extending the courtesy of 
the church. I know of at least one church in, 
which a body of polite and faithful ushers has 
found the following method of much worth. 
Each usher has a small card, on one side of 
which is printed this : — 

" If you are a stranger in this church it would 
give me pleasure to see you at the close of the ser- 
vice and to introduce you to our pastor and other 
members." 

This simple invitation is signed by the 
name of the usher. On the obverse side is a 
blank space for the name and address of the 
one who receives the card. This method has 
various advantages. It gives the stranger an 
opportunity for knowing somewhat of the ser- 
vice of the church before revealing his iden- 
tity. He need not be hurried against his will 
into taking up a connection which he may 



TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. 1 05 

regret. It is not too effusive. It is yet suf- 
ficiently aggressive in the offers of hospitality. 
It invites accuracy in identifying each person. 
It puts each stranger in the line of the per- 
sonal life and work of the church. In the 
execution of this plan the number of ushers 
must be large, and they should be aided by 
the reception committee and by others who 
may be blessed with social gifts. Emphasis 
should also be constantly laid by the pastor 
upon the duty of all pew-holders speaking to 
strangers whom they may meet. It may also 
be noted that it is well to pursue a similar 
method in the case of large prayer-meetings. 
Along this line it may be suggested that the 
pastor at the close of the prayer-meeting 
should make his way to the door through 
which the people pass, and should give to 
each one a hearty greeting. I know of able 
ministers who indicate their hospitality in a 
like way at the close of the Sabbath morning 
service. Selecting the aisle which is the least 
filled, they rush to the door of exit. I con- 
fess that such a procedure under the circum- 



106 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

stances seems to me to be lacking in dignity. 
It is far better for the ushers to meet strangers 
at the close of the service, and to escort them 
to the pastor, who remains near the stairway to 
the pulpit. 

As soon as one indicates his desire to feel 
at home in a church, the people of that church 
should extend to him the ordinary courtesy 
through calling at his home. Every church 
should have its committee upon strangers, 
but no church should demand that this com- 
mittee have all the pleasure of first knowing 
these strangers. The members of this com- 
mittee should indeed call at the home of 
strangers, but they should also make these 
strangers known to those of the church who 
live in the same neighborhood into which 
they have moved. In a large church it is quite 
impossible for any one person to know more 
than a small proportion of all the members. 
Acquaintance, therefore, in the same neighbor- 
hood should be specially fostered. The chair- 
man of the committee on strangers, therefore, 
at once on knowing that a family in a neigh- 



TREATMENT OF STRANGERS. loy 

borhood desires to become associated with 
the church, should communicate the fact to 
the older members residing in the same neigh- 
borhood, and ask them to call and to know 
the new residents. This method tends to 
do away with a mere formality of church 
acquaintance. It tends to found this ac- 
quaintance upon genuinely social as well as 
ecclesiastical considerations. It makes ac- 
quaintance easy because natural. It is eco- 
nomical in labor and time. It is simple ; it 
adopts the principle of the division of labor, 
and wherever it has been wisely applied it 
has proved of much worth. 

The traditional " social " should not be 
slighted in the organized endeavor of the 
church. But the " social " should always be 
sociable. If it is cold in its atmosphere and 
filled with unnecessary formalities, it is a 
dull, gloomy, distressing occasion. The hour 
should not be so filled with music and read- 
ings and addresses as to leave no time for 
conversation, and yet the hour should not be 
so devoid of such pleasures as to seem vacant 



108 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

and bare. The socials should also recognize 
the fact that it is much easier to be sociable 
over a cup of coffee ! 

It remains to be added that as the pastor 
succeeds in getting strangers at work in the 
church, they cease to be strangers. The 
work identifies them with the church. Work 
promotes knowledge of, and love for, the 
church. The sooner the pastor is able to 
assign some individual Christian duty to each 
new member, the sooner he may throw aside 
all responsibility as to mere social acquaint- 
ance. Work for Christ and His church makes 
all one. Let the church hold itself as a 
spiritual institution, using social courtesies as 
agencies in its spiritual development. It is 
also true that the use of social courtesies as 
means renders them more social and more 
courteous than if they are regarded as ends. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE UNCHURCHED. 




LUSTERING about many churches, 
be they in the city or in the country, 
is a population as remote from the 
church in sentiment as it may be near to it 
in space. As to the duty of the church to 
endeavor to reach these people there is no 
question. The question is as to the method 
of reaching those who are thus unchurched. 
I answer, first, that a systematic religious cen- 
sus should be made of all the families of each 
city, town, and parish. The church census 
is not designed as a substitute for spiritual 
power. Its express purpose is to facilitate and 
to make more effective the work of the Holy 
Ghost. Nor is its aim the annulling of the 
religious duties of the members of a church. 
It proposes to increase these duties and to 



IIO THE WORKING CHURCH. 

add to their obligation. The Massachusetts 
pastor was as right in his logic as he was 
wrong in his piety in saying that he did not 
desire his church to make this canvass, since 
it would give the members too much to do ! 

The church census is simply a voyage of 
discovery to learn who are outside of direct 
religious influences, for the purpose of draw- 
ing those thus found within the circle of 
these influences. It is a movement pre- 
liminary to the wise presentation of the or- 
dinances of the church to those not receiving 
them. The motive is spiritual, the method 
simple, and the means accessible. 

The present conditions of social and re- 
ligious life emphasize the need of a canvass 
of this character in each town. The in- 
clination of non-attendance at church is 
strong. The causes of this inclination may 
be open to debate ; the fact is generally 
acknowledged. Population circulates rapidly. 
Families have no permanent abiding-place. 
The American home, like that of George 
Eliot in her last years, is on wheels. The 



THE UNCHURCHED. Ill 

increasing custom of renting houses invites 
this constant rotation. Furthermore, the 
drift of population from rural districts to 
metropolitan centres is great, — hardly less 
great in the West than in the East. 

The church census is therefore needed. 
For the constant or irregular migration from 
town to town loosens the religious ties of the 
ordinary home. Without special desire of 
availing itself of the privileges of the church, 
the family fails to take up a connection with 
the church in the new neighborhood. It 
simply falls out of all ecclesiastical relation- 
ship. This condition every minister knows 
is not infrequent. The canvass reveals fam- 
ilies of this nature. It so makes them known 
that the church not only can open its doors 
to them, but even invite them to enter. The 
urban movement of population works similar 
effects. Many persons from country homes 
are inclined to feel that they are not wanted 
in the city churches. The feeling is, I be- 
lieve, not accordant with the facts, yet it is 
more or less sincere. The religious census 



112 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

of a city discovers not a few homes, whose 
members are church-members, in which this 
sentiment prevails. The knowledge of the 
fact prompts to urgency in the extending of 
the courtesies of the church. 

We present on page 113 a series of ques- 
tions which should be asked of each family 
of a town, through a personal canvass. This 
form has also been employed in a census. 

The census represents the proper attitude 
of the churches toward those who are in- 
clined to neglect their services. This atti- 
tude should be that of hearty invitation. 
The church, like Christ, is sent to find the lost 
sheep. It is not merely to invite, it is also 
to go out into the highways and the byways 
and compel, them to come in. The minister 
who, when asked what he was doing to reach 
people, replied, " Opening the doors of the 
church Sunday morning," had failed to grasp 
the central truth of Christianity. By its 
very constitution the church cannot be any- 
thing else than missionary. This attitude of 
the churches is at the present time of special 



THE UNCHURCHED. 113 

DATE NO 

No Street 

Name 

Members of. 

Attendance or Preference , 

Members elsewhere or letter.... 

No. in family Under 21 years 

No. who attend S. S. Where. 

Servants 

Boarders 

Willing to teach in S. S* 

Have you a Bible f. 

Remarks 



Will the pastor to whom this is sent keep this slip for 
future reference and use ? 



114 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

importance. For communities both change 
and increase rapidly in population. In 
twenty-five years the constituency of many 
urban and suburban churches undergoes a 
complete revolution. In these swift changes 
many families fail to form any relation, other, 
than the slightest,, with a church. If they 
know the church, the church, under ordinary 
conditions, fails to know them. A minister 
of a church in a city, either large or small, or 
in a village, cannot learn the ecclesiastical 
preferences of families that are more or less 
peripatetic. But such families should be 
reached ; if not reached, they fail to receive 
the gospel quite as much as the heathen. 

But this canvass is of greatest worth in form- 
ing a basis of more definite and more aggres- 
sive Christian work. The canvass reveals 
those who are unchurched ; the minister and 
congregation should at once endeavor to 
gather them into the church. When the 
census makes known " backsliders," efforts 
should at once be made to reclaim them. 
When the census discovers children who are 



THE UNCHURCHED. 115 

members of no Sunday-school, Sunday-school 
committees should at once be sent to bring 
them into classes. If the church has no room 
for these new-comers, room should in some 
way be made. The privileges of the house 
of God should be denied to no soul by reason 
of lack of square feet of flooring. If one 
church can-not give them room, another may 
be able. Certainly under some ecclesiastical 
roof-tree they should find a Christian church- 
home. 

The endeavor to reach the unchurched 
should not simply be systematic, it should 
also be constant. Systematic visitation 
should be continued, not for six months, but 
for years. Constant pressure is more effec- 
tive for the proposed purpose than heavy 
periodical pressure. Furthermore, both the 
church and the minister should strive to re- 
tain even the slightest ties which may connect 
a family with the church. The service at a 
wedding or a funeral may be the small cord 
which may in years grow into the cable 
uniting the individual family to the church- 
home. 



Il6 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

In many instances, instead of the man 
coming to the church, the church must go to 
the man. The church is apostolic, mission- 
ary. In this aggressive endeavor no methods 
are more worthy of attention than those of 
Mr. McAll in Paris. 

For several years the churches and min- 
isters of the United States have been talking 
as to means and measures for reaching the 
unchurched of the large cities. The general 
difficulty with many means and measures 
proposed is the difficulty of most patents, — 
complication ; the machinery is too elabo- 
rate. The methods of Mr. McAll represent 
the simplicity of spiritual genius and the 
genius of simplicity. 

The first point relates to a place of meet- 
ing. The stations of the McAll Mission are 
rooms, seating from one hundred and fifty to 
three hundred persons, plainly furnished, yet 
attractive, with chairs and pictures, on the 
ground floor, and usually in places where 
people " most do congregate/' To reach the 
masses, one must go where the masses are. 



THE UNCHURCHED. \\J 

We must get as close to them as we can. It 
is not necessary to build a church edifice. A 
simple, attractive room, on the ground floor, 
brilliantly lighted at night, is far more ef- 
fective than a building which in form and 
structure proclaims its religious purpose. To 
effect this purpose of gathering in all classes, 
the place of meeting must be immediately 
off the street. Mr. McAll would never have 
achieved his present success had he obliged 
Frenchmen to climb a flight of stairs to 
attend his services. We cannot evangelize 
Boston, or New York, or Chicago on the 
second floor. In every way should the ap- 
proach to the room in which these evangelistic 
services are held be made easy and attractive. 
Placard and gas should draw and hold the 
attention. The surroundings should be in- 
viting to the evening stroller. A word of 
welcome should await him at the threshold, 
and be continued and emphasized with a 
warm grasp of the hand within the doors. 

A second point as important as the loca- 
tion and attractiveness of the place of meet- 



Il8 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

ing relates to the character of the meeting. 
The service, first of all, should be interesting. 
If it is dull or stupid, it is a failure for its im- 
mediate aim. It is impossible to hold the 
unconverted masses without interesting them. 
In gaining this purpose, the power of song, 
has, in France, proved most effective. The 
Moody and Sankey songs are translated and 
sung quite as much in Paris as in New York. 
The wanderers on the streets at night can 
be thus attracted. These songs are open to 
criticism on grounds of reverence and truth- 
fulness as well as of aesthetics. But for their 
purpose of drawing and holding the masses, 
they are unequalled. Scores of people will 
come off the street to sing, 

" The half was never told," 

who would turn away from the most eloquent 
sermon. 

But a meeting at a McAll station is incom- 
plete without an address. This address is 
usually a direct, personal, warm, wise appeal. 
I have seen scores of the blue-jacketed work- 



THE UNCHURCHED. 119 

men of Paris listening to such appeals. Some 
were listless, more were touched in heart, 
most were interested. Will not the laborers 
of Boston, New York, and Chicago likewise 
listen ? The masses of the American people 
seem tome less hungry for the gospel than 
the masses of the French people; but I am 
constrained to believe that under proper con- 
ditions scores, if not hundreds, could be 
gathered night by night into little mission 
rooms in our great cities, — - scores who now 
do not enter a church once a year. 

Work of this character demands a man, 
and demands money. It requires wisdom, 
faith, hope, tact, patience, and, above all else, 
a love for perishing souls and a love for 
Christ who died to save them. But is it not 
a method of work the success of which in 
the new republic of the Old World gives a 
promise of its success in the old republic of 
the New World ? Is not God able to do, 
through us, for American cities what He is 
doing through an English Congregational min- 
ister for Paris and other French cities ? 



120 THE WORKING CHURCH, 

If the individual church would do its duty 
to those who live in its immediate vicinity, 
and who neglect all religious services, it were 
well. Yet even such faithfulness would not 
effect results equal to the general needs. For 
beyond the immediate vicinity of the church-, 
es, in parts of the cities whence churches 
have withdrawn, are thousands of people who 
are without the help which the church should 
be able and willing to offer. In each country 
district, too, miles away from any church, are 
many families, who are more bereft of the priv- 
ileges of the church than the Fiji Islanders. 
Many churches are devoting every energy to 
keeping themselves alive. They feel unable 
to be aggressive in either personal or pecuni- 
ary effort. They yield to the up-town pres- 
sure of the tide of the better class of people. 
They seek what is recognized as a more 
desirable constituency. They are not worthy 
of blame only, since their mistake is quite as 
much one of method as of motive ; but the 
church, however, should know that it can 
maintain its integrity only by bringing into 



THE UNCHURCHED. 121 

its life as constant factors those who dwell 
about its edifice. For the purpose of bring- 
ing these persons into the church, every 
means of personal visitation and attractive- 
ness in service should be employed. 

For the purpose, however, of reaching the 
non-churchgoing population, the union of 
churches in aggressive endeavor may prove 
of much worth. The organic union of all 
denominations of Protestants is a hope born 
of the unreasoning heart of the religious en- 
thusiast. Organic union is not possible, and 
if it were possible, is not to be desired. And 
if organic union were once formed, it is more 
than probable that the union thus formed 
would for religious efficiency become dis- 
union. But union for Christian work is pos- 
sible at the present time, and is more to be 
desired than any other practical method of 
evangelization. It is thus that neighborhoods 
having too few churches may be supplied 
with religious privileges. It is thus that 
neighborhoods having too many churches may 
spend their superfluous strength in destitute 



122 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

districts. It is thus that the evils of an over- 
multiplication of churches may be avoided, 
and religion instead of rivalries promoted. 

The history of Christianity since the apos- 
tolic age, when there were Cephasites, Apol- 
losites, Paulists, and Christians, has been the 
history of ecclesiastical divisions. The list of 
these divided members of the one body of our 
Lord is to-day longer than ever. The. pastor 
has been too eager to build up his individual 
church, and not sufficiently eager to build up 
the whole church of his order ; and the whole 
church of all orders has suffered. The whole 
church of one order has been too solicitous to 
build up itself, and not sufficiently solicitous 
to build up the whole church of all orders ; 
the church universal has suffered. 1 The time 
has now come when the broadest and high- 
est motives should have a controlling influ- 
ence. Denominational methods have proved 



1 " The Catholic religion respects masses of men, and ages. It 
is in harmony with Nature, which loves the race and ruins the indi- 
vidual. The Protestant has his pew, which of course is the first 
step to a church for every individual citizen, a church apiece." 
— Jottrna! of R. IV. Emerson, Cabof s Memoir, p. 472. 



THE UNCHURCHED. 1 23 

insufficient. Interdenominational methods of 
work are not practicable. Undenominational 
methods are at once practicable, desirable, 
and full of promise. With a basis as broad 
and strong as the love for God and man, let 
all the churches unite in the aggressive war- 
fare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
With a doctrinal union as firm and elastic 
as the Apostles' creed, let all those confess- 
ing the one Name in which alone there is 
salvation, become one in purpose, methods, 
and movement. Let co-operation take the 
place of competition, and diversity be sub- 
stituted for division. 

The religious census is the beginning of 
this advance. The second step is the sys- 
tematic visitation and personal invitation to 
participate in the work and worship of the 
church. Personal conversation upon the 
most personal, which is also the most impor- 
tant, of subjects should become usual. Those 
classes now neglecting and neglected by the 
church may thus be won into close and help- 
ful fellowship. Let the churches unite in 



124 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

caring for districts in our own land that are 
now more heathen than Japan. 

Such a united movement would be most 
useful in calming the ruffled waters which 
are so stirred up by socialistic agitations. 
By hanging bomb-throwers, the law cannot 
put out the fires hissing in the furnace of 
public discontent. The gospel alone can cure 
socialism and anarchy ; and the gospel must 
cure socialism and anarchy, or they will not 
be cured. The divine love as the divine law 
for human acceptance, and the divine love as 
the divine law for human obedience, must be- 
come supreme. The Church, the one Church 
of the one Christ, having one body though 
many members, and each member adjusted to 
every other, should, in love for Him and love 
for man, give itself, in a Christlike spirit and 
according to wise methods, to these Gentiles 
of its own Judaea. 

Note. — In answer to the question " What can the ordinary 
church do to reach the masses? " the Rev. Dr. D. A. Reed (Pro- 
ceedings of the Second Convention of Christian Workers in the 
United States and Canada, Sept. 21-28, 18? 7, p. 32) has suggested 
these methods : — 



THE UNCHURCHED. 1 25 

11 In concluding, let me summarize : * What can the ordinary 
church do to reach the masses ? ' 

"(1) Let the services of the church be simple, pleasing, and 
attractive. 

"(2) Have special evangelistic services in the evening, with 
good music. 

u (3) Have a well-manned Sunday-school, with building suitable 
for class-rooms for a large number of adult classes ; also where 
classes can meet during the week for literary and social purposes. 

" (4) Have educational classes, and lectures on certain evenings, 
on the great burning questions of the day, by live, earnest men. 

11 (5) Where a church numbers over three hundred, have two 
pastors, or a pastor and a trained assistant, devoting his whole 
time to the work, under the direction of the pastor or supplement- 
ing him. 

u (6) Make much of personal work, the efforts of individuals 
whose hearts are full of love for souls. Have a band of men and 
women trained in the Bible, who shall know how to use it and 
love to use it, ready to work in all meetings of an evangelistic char- 
acter in the inquiry-room, ready to go and see individuals and con- 
verse with them about their spiritual needs, wise to win souls. 

" (7) Have the parish districted, and find out where the people 
attend church, if possible ; and if they do not attend, go for them 
and invite them, not once but many times. 

11 (8) Have branch chapels or cottage prayer-meetings, or both, 
in the districts where fewest people attend church. They will 
often go into these places when they will not go into the church. 

"(9) Have a sufficient number of visitors for each district, so 
that too many families will not be given to any one. 

" (10) Have classes into which those who are converted can 
enter and be instructed in the great doctrines of Christianity, and 
taught how to study the Bible with profit and pleasure, and how 
to engage in some form of Christian work. 

" (11) Set the converts to work, watching, directing, encourag- 
ing them until they get to love it and consecrate themselves to it. 
Show them, by the teaching and example of pastor and older 
Christians, that the great aim of the church is to bear true witness 
to the gospel of Jesus Christ and save men. Show each Christian 
that he or she has a personal work to do with persons ; that 



126 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

money and prayers are not sufficient ; that sympathy and love 
and personal solicitude for the comfort and salvation of men are 
what the masses need. 

"(12) Money, brains, consecration, and the aid of the Holy 
Spirit will enable any ordinary church to win the masses." 



CHAPTER XL 



BENEVOLENCE. 




ERTAIN principles every pastor may 
and should impress upon his church, 
(i) All property should be conse- 
crated to God. The Christian's wealth is not 
his ; it is Christ's, to whom he himself belongs. 
He is, therefore, to keep or to give, to hoard 
or to spend, as will result most fully in the 
doing of the Divine will. He may, like Dea- 
con Safford, place a self-imposed limit on the 
wealth he will retain, giving away each year 
whatever he finds in excess. He may, like 
not a few, reserve ten per cent of his income 
for benevolence. He may give away large 
amounts or small, either in person or by be- 
quest. But whatever method he adopts, the 
principle is to be followed that property be- 
longs to God. 



128 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

(2) The peril of great property, which is 
worldliness, is best avoided by great benevo- 
lence. Many members of our churches are 
becoming rich, and not a few very rich. The 
United States is to be the richest nation of 
history. Many men making money rapidly 
can keep alive their Christian faith only by 
giving away a certain percentage of it as rap- 
idly as it is made. " I grow avaricious," said 
a prosperous banker, "if I do not give away 
much money." Benevolence is an ethical and 
Christian safeguard. 

(3) Benevolence- is a duty laid upon all. 
Churches distinguished for their generosity 
usually gain their eminence from the gener- 
osity of a few. An offering recently made in 
a Presbyterian church of New York amounted 
to some fourteen thousand dollars. It was 
heralded as a munificent contribution ; but in 
it was one check for ten thousand dollars* and 
the larger part of the balance was given by 
two or three men. I have been told of a con- 
tribution of sixteen thousand dollars, of which 
fifteen thousand dollars were given by three 



BENE VOL ENCE. 1 2 9 

contributors. Each should not only give, but 
each should give in proportion to his means. 

(4) The larger one's property or income, the 
larger should be the percentage of his benev- 
olence. The tithe represents a great funda- 
mental principle. But one hundred dollars 
from an income of a thousand is, relatively to 
the needs of a home, a much larger sum than 
a thousand dollars drawn from an income of 
ten thousand. The thousand dollars may 
hardly more than suffice to buy necessaries; 
the ten thousand, after supplying the common 
wants, leaves a large balance for permanent 
investment. On the whole, rich men are rel- 
atively less generous than poor men. 

(5) The just demands of benevolence are 
to be recognized as imperative. What do they 
not include ? Home missions and foreign, 
charitable organizations of every sort, philan- 
thropic movements, the endowment of col- 
leges and schools and seminaries, and every 
endeavor looking to the redemption of the 
world from sin and unto Christ, are within 
the horizon of these just demands. Almost 

9 



130 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

daily comes some appeal to the desk from 
which this chapter was written. Each ap- 
peal is worthy. By itself each demand seems 
to deserve prompt and generous response. 
Every secretary of every mission board 
hourly hears the cry for help. To refuse 
to hear the cry always means retrenchment 
of the work, frequently retreat, and some- 
times absolute defeat. Despite their great 
generosity, most churches and most Chris- 
tians have no conception of either the duty 
or the joy of giving money to Christ's w r ork 
in the world. 

(6) Benevolence should not be subject to 
impulse, but the result of wise deliberation 
upon the needs of Christian work. Offerings 
should not be proportioned to the interest 
which a speaker for a cause may or may not 
awaken ; they should not be dependent upon 
a rainy Sunday or upon personal presence in 
a service in which the contribution box is 
passed. Their amount should be adjusted to 
income and to property on the one side, and to 
the demands of the work on the other. They 



BENE VOLENCE. 1 3 I 

should be systematic, — systematic as to time, 
as to amount, as to distribution. They should 
be the subject of premeditation, and in many 
instances of pledge in advance. The objec- 
tion, so often made, to pledging an offering of 
a certain sum, since the amount of future in- 
come is an uncertain quality, is not candid. 
Pledges made toward the benevolences of a 
church are usually so made that to cancel 
them is easy. Furthermore, the objection is 
so based as to lose all definitive force. Every 
family lives in a certain recognized way, 
though its future income is unknown. 

For this general work of the church the 
system of annual pledges and weekly gifts is 
the best. The system is an education in be- 
nevolence. It is an education in the feeling 
of benevolence, but it is also an education 
in the principle of benevolence. It tends 
to make giving constant and wise. It em- 
phasizes the duty. Unless one is trained, 
he seldom gives according to his ability. 
The largest givers, proportionally to their 
means, are found among those who have 



132 THE WORKING CHURCH 

been thus educated in and from youth. This 
system teaches children as well as men. It 
attracts and retains the pennies and five-cent 
pieces. The constant regularity develops the 
generous impulses and motives. 

Akin to this advantage of education is a 
second which the system offers. It tends to 
change benevolent offerings from being re- 
garded as acts of grace to being regarded as 
acts of regular church administration. It les- 
sens the inclination to judge benevolence as 
a work of supererogation. This inclination 
is strong. Many nominal Christians look on 
the field of foreign and home missions as 
one to which they bear no relation. If they 
aid in maintaining missions, the assistance is 
considered as a favor bestowed and not as a 
duty done. They do not look on the Ameri- 
ican Board as a society doing their work in 
China and Africa. They do not regard the 
Home Missionary Society as their representa- 
tive in the churches of Minnesota and Mis- 
souri and Texas. They do not consider the 
American Missionary Association as their 



BENE VOLENCE. 1 3 3 

teacher and preacher to the American black 
man and red man. This, however, is precise- 
ly the fact. These and all other societies are 
simply the churches organized and working 
for certain ends. If this work is at all a duty, 
the support of it is not an act of grace, but of 
duty. The regular giving tends to foster this 
just estimate of it. 

The system of weekly offerings, further- 
more, encourages all to benevolence. It en- 
courages specially those whose gifts must be 
-small. One easily gives twenty-five cents a 
week who would not feel able to pledge twelve 
dollars a year. It is easier to give a small 
sum regularly than a large sum, in the aggre- 
gate no greater, irregularly. Those who are 
accustomed to give nothing, through this sys- 
tem are usually moved to give something. 
Those who are accustomed to give largely are 
thus moved to give more largely. The man 
who is accustomed to give twenty-five dollars 
a quarter discovers that he can and ought to 
give more than two dollars a Sunday. Sub- 
division, by diminishing the amount of each 



134 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

gift, at once convinces those who are not 
wealthy that they are able to give something, 
and those who are wealthy that they are able 
to give more generously. 

Following from this advantage is a fourth,, 
which is that the amount of offerings is thus 
greatly increased. The statistics show that 
the introduction of the system usually results 
in a gain of from 20 to 200 per cent. Of 
three churches in Massachusetts one reported 
a gain of 300 per cent, one of between 400 
and 500, and one of not less than 500, conse- 
quent upon the adoption of this method. Of 
this increase there is indeed abundant need, 
when, in a rich and generous Commonwealth 
like Massachusetts, each Congregational 
church-member gives less than five cents a 
day for the maintenance and extension of 
the church at home and abroad. 

The disadvantages of the system are few 
and slight. The uncertainty of income, the 
uncertainties due to sickness and other disa- 
bilities, render it inexpedient, it is said, to 
pledge for a year in advance a specified week- 



BENE VOLENCE. I 3 5 

ly gift. Bat each person can usually be as- 
sured of a certain income. He can make his 
calculations upon this basis ; and if the 31st 
of December shows that he has been pros- 
pered more than he dared to hope, his bless- 
ing may fitly be recognized and bestowed as 
a thank-offering. The pledge is, indeed, not 
one to be kept except as one is financially 
able to keep it. 

In the use of pledges, the apparent pub- 
licity of the system would seem objectionable. 
But this publicity is only apparent. At the 
furthest the treasurer alone knows the 
amount of each offering; and usually he is 
ignorant, — for an account is kept, not of the 
names of the givers, but of certain numbers 
which represent the givers. 

This system of weekly offerings, though so 
excellent, does not succeed of itself. It 
needs, without exception, to be zvorked. A 
poor system well applied may prove more 
effective than a good system ill applied. This 
method requires constant instruction and 
appeal. 



136 THE WORKING CHURCH, 

In his own relation to the benevolence of 
his church, the pastor should impress him- 
self with the duty, ( 1 ) of giving full and 
exact information to the members as to the 
condition of those missionary endeavors in 
which they invest ; ( 2 ) of never suffering 
himself to be tempted by meagre contribu- 
tions into petulance or scolding ; ( 3 ) of setting 
a fitting example himself; (4) of wisdom in 
approaching individuals as to the time, place, 
and amount ; ( 5 ) of the education of the 
young and old in generous giving ; ( 6 ) of per- 
sistence, which is only aggressive patience. 

But principles even broader and more fun- 
damental than those to which I have already 
alluded are to be made potent in the adminis- 
tration. It is hardly too much to say that 
money is the greatest material power in the 
modern world for either good or eviL " It 
can do," as Mr. Dombey said to Paul, — " it 
can do anything, almost." The expression 
may seem bold, yet it is true, — that the pas- 
tor should inspire his parishioners to make 
money for Christ. This is an age of differ- 



BENE VOLENCE. I 3 7 

entiation in work. The workman who fifty 
years ago knew a whole trade, now knows 
only one branch of that trade. The editor 
of the old times was the printer; his hands 
set up and struck off the copy which the 
same hands had written. To-day, on a large 
paper, each department commands several 
writers. This differentiation runs through 
all departments of labor. It exists in Chris- 
tian work. The old New England minister 
received a part of his salary in the farm 
which surrounded the parsonage. He raised 
the oats and hay for the horse which carried 
him over his parish ; and potatoes and corn 
for the family use. To-day, in most parts, 
he gives himself entirely to his work as a 
minister, and allows his parishioners to at- 
tend to agriculture. The missionary goes 
to China ; he goes simply as a missionary. 
He goes with no purpose of earning a liveli- 
hood. But he must have a livelihood. Now, 
with this differentiation and subdivision of 
labor, it becomes the duty of the home church 
to make money for his livelihood. In a New 



138 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

England State is a farmer who has been a 
missionary. He has sisters in Asia who are 
now missionaries. He desires to aid them in 
their work. But he can aid them more effec- 
tively by staying at home, and on a Vermont 
farm coining the dollars which are devoted to 
the wise and effective prosecution of their dis- 
tant labor. Prayers are essential, conversion 
is essential, personal effort is essential ; but 
benevolence is equally essential in Christian 
work. 

But money is not only an essential means 
of doing good, money is also the means of 
doing the widest good. Civilization increases 
the power of the dollar. " A dollar in a uni- 
versity," remarks Emerson, in his essay on 
Wealth, "is worth more than a dollar in a 
jail ; in a temperate, schooled, law-abiding 
community, than in some sink of crime, where 
dice, knives, and arsenic are in constant 
play." The electric telegraph has widened 
the dollar's circle of influence. One can sit 
in his dining-room and write a message which 
shall, before he finishes his dinner, put bread 



BENEVOLENCE. 1 39 

in the mouths of starving men in China. He 
is feeding them just as truly as if he were in 
Pekin, and standing on a street corner giving 
away food. One can sit in his pew in a 
church of New York or San Francisco, of 
New Orleans or Minneapolis, and by his gen- 
erosity dictate the removal of the barbarism, 
and the enlightenment by Christianity, of 
Asia and Africa. The forces of the air co- 
operate with each Christian in his continental 
labor of love. Puck put his girdle around the 
world in forty minutes. The Christian of 
the United States can put his girdle of con- 
secrated gold as quickly around the globe ; 
.and wherever it touches the earth, its flashes 
of divine influence illuminate the night of 
heathendom. 

At the opening of this century lived in 
Salem a rich merchant by the name of John 
Norris. Three years before the establish- 
ment of the American Board he had resolved 
to give a sum of money to the cause of for- 
eign missions. To his home came, one winter 
night in 1806, Dr. Worcester and Dr. Spring, 



140 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

of Newburyport. The reverend gentlemen 
were endeavoring to found a theological 
school at Andover. After explaining their 
plan, they departed, without any promise of 
aid from Mr. Norris. The next morning, 
however, Mr. Norris said to Dr. Spring: "My 
wife tells me that this plan for a theological 
school and the missionary enterprise are the 
same thing. We must raise up the ministers 
if we would have the men go as mission- 
aries. ,, With this idea he promised to give 
$10,000 to found Andover Seminary. He 
went to the bank, drew out the whole amount 
in silver, carried it to his chamber, and with 
prayer dedicated it to the cause he lovedi 
He explained his gift in silver by saying that 
" he had never heard that paper money was 
given to build the Temple." Who shall 
estimate the influence of those silver dollars ? 
They have helped to educate three thousand 
ministers. They have helped to educate 
hundreds of missionaries, who have preached 
and taught, lived and died, for the heathen. 
They have gleaned in a path reaching from 



BENEVOLENCE. 141 

Andover hill round the globe to Andover 
hill, — like the path of the just, which shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day. 

But money may also be the most lasting 
power for good. Not only through all the 
world, but even through all time its influence 
may abide. For hundreds of years Oxford 
and Cambridge Universities have existed. 
For their endowment kings and queens were 
glad to contribute. Henry IV., Edward VI., 
Mary, Elizabeth, and Charles I. gave of their 
rich bounty. The august rulers of England, 
whose dust has mingled with native dust, still 
rule in the kingdom of scholarship. Here 
on these shores John Harvard and John 
Winthrop and Saltonstall and Yale endowed 
colleges. Funds are still held in trust by 
Harvard University which have for two hun- 
dred and fifty years made an education pos- 
sible to youths whose brains were as large as 
their purses were small. From generation to 
generation, as men have come and men have 
gone, these benefactions have remained, and 
have dropped their showers of honorable aid. 



142 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

In benevolence much money is so used as to 
be more useless than spilled water. It is the 
nurse of indolence and of crime. The Middle 
Ages were distinguished for their benevo- 
lence. The begging friars overran Europe; 
but they came as the locusts upon Egypt, 
to devour and to flee. But few results equal 
to the amount expended appeared. The 
relief was temporary. Money is not to be 
spent in loaves of bread to toss to a man in 
a bog ; it is to be spent in a plank to get him 
out of the mire, that he may himself earn 
bread. Money, to be the means of the 
greatest good, must be so placed as to make 
its benefits lasting ; and money may be so 
placed that its benefits shall last as long as 
eternity. The individual dies. His money 
may never die ; it may last as long as there 
are woes to relieve, needs to supply, hearts 
to regenerate, souls to save. His money 
may be as an enduring character to remain 
on the earth to continue the work which he 
himself began. 

Wealth represents the highest values. 



BENE VOLENCE. 1 43 

What are they ? They are intelligence, vir- 
tue, honor, truth, duty, character. Wealth is 
to be used in the fostering of these elements 
and ideals. The men and the society that are 
blessed with riches should be more intelli- 
gent, more honorable, more loyal to truth and 
to duty, and more just in the regard paid to 
human character than those not thus blessed. 
To the creation of these highest values wealth 
should be devoted. 

This nation is rich. It is the wealthiest 
nation on the face of the globe. It has a 
future of material grandeur which exceeds 
the brightest pictures of fancy. Wealth 
nearly doubles every decade. In 1850 the 
real and personal property of the United 
States was seven billions; in i860 it had 
increased to sixteen billions; in 1870 it had 
become twenty-four billions; in 1880 it was 
forty-three billions. It increases six millions 
every twenty-four hours. With this vast in- 
crease of vast wealth, the question becomes 
of mighty importance : Are these billions to 
be devoted to the service of God or to the 



144 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

service of Satan ? In San Francisco are forty 
millionnaires, and only one is said to be a 
member of an evangelical church. Shall the 
wealth of this country be in the hands of 
godly or of ungodly men ? 

The old motto was, Noblesse oblige, — Nobil- 
ity of blood binds one to noble service. 
The new motto is, Richesse oblige, — Riches 
bind one to noble service. 




CHAPTER XII. 

THE REWARDS OF CHRISTIAN WORK. 

O the members of every working 
church, as to every pastor, in the 
midst of wearying toil, frequently 
recurs the question : " What is the reward, 
what is the compensation ? " The answer 
should always be free from utilitarian con- 
siderations. Every Christian laborer needs 
to inspire himself with the thought that the 
noblest rewards are his. 

To the Christian one such compensation 
lies in the assurance that he is co-operating 
with the best forces of mankind, — he is 
putting himself in the line of the operation 
of the highest and most lasting powers of 
humanity. He is a part of that which makes 
for righteousness. He is one in that body of 
noble laborers which creates the best history. 



146 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

He is one in that line of true men who re- 
ceive the ball of progress and hand it on to 
those who come after. It is only the Chris- 
tian whose life and work are thus embodied 
in the noblest forces of the race, I acknowl- 
edge the cultured learning, the high wisdom, 
and the literary genius of a Goethe ; but I 
cannot forget that the pathway of Goethe 
was like the pathway of the lightning, bril- 
liant and destructive. I acknowledge the 
pure aims, the unstinted generosity, the calm 
judgment of Harriet Martineau ; but I cannot 
forget that her last years were devoted to a 
so-called science which, without lifting mor- 
tals to the skies, does not succeed in drawing 
angels down, — the science of Spiritualism. I 
acknowledge, and acknowledge with pleasure, 
the active philanthropies and the healthful re- 
forms which are born and nurtured beyond 
the pale of the Church. Those who thus la- 
bor have their reward : it is the reward of 
putting their lives and operations in the line 
of those forces which work for righteous- 
ness. But in a degree higher, in a mean- 



REWARDS OF CHRISTIAN WORK. 1 47 

ing nobler, does a Christian put his life into 
the work which elevates mankind. It is only 
the Christian aim which provides an ideal 
high enough for man. It is only the Chris- 
tian motives which furnish strength suffi- 
cient for permanent activity. It is only the 
Star of Bethlehem which guides men to the 
shrine of purest worship. In the crypt of 
the old cathedral at Glasgow, facing toward 
the statue of John Knox, is a window with a 
picture of the Good Samaritan, and above it 
these words, in broad Scotch : u Let the deed 
shaw." So the Christian can say that his life, 
his work, are to shaw. In his life, in his work 
in relieving the evils of the race, in giving 
light for darkness, joy for sorrow, he has his 
compensation. 

One may say that his life is a small life, 
that his work is a slight work. Say it if one 
will ; but I also say that great results may 
flow from a life apparently small, from a work 
apparently slight. At one time the history 
of Europe depended upon the question 
whether the look-out man upon Nelson's 



I48 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

vessel would or would not descry a ship of 
Napoleon's expedition to Egypt which was 
passing not far off. " What shall we have ? " 
An aching head, a heavy heart, a weary 
back ; " many a sorrow, many a labor, many . 
a tear." " What shall we have ? " If we : 
have wound-prints in our hands and feet, if 
we have a crown of thorns, they are only 
what He had. li What shall we have ? " 
We shall also have what He had, — the con- 
sciousness that our arm is striking strongest 
blows against evil, that our hands are lifting 
high the standard of the right. " Would you 
see his monument, look about you ! " are 
words written concerning Sir Christopher 
Wren on the walls of St. Paul's in London. 
Is there any compensation of Christian ser- 
vice more sweet or more precious than the 
assurance that we are working with the best 
forces in the world for the improvement of 
the race ? 

No petition is more frequent in the heart 
of the faithful pastor than this prayer that 
he may make his character of the greatest 



REWARDS OF CHRISTIAN WORK. 1 49 

worth. He would sell his life as dearly as 
possible ; he would spill his blood, drop by 
drop ; he would use heart and brain to the 
utmost. But he asks for himself no higher 
compensation than the consciousness that his 
prayer is answered, and that he is spilling 
his blood, drop by drop, in the fight for the 
faith. 

A further compensation of Christian ser- 
vice, belonging both to the church, the pastor, 
and the individual, is the assurance that one 
is working with God. A faithful pastor can 
bear the loss of popularity, can endure the 
loss of the personal love of the church, can 
see pews emptied and income decrease ; but 
he can see all this with a braver heart than 
he can see that his church is failing in its 
personal consecration, thus failing to give 
itself to the work of God for the world. 

At Williamstown a single granite monu- 
ment marks the spot where fourscore years 
ago stood a haystack, kneeling in whose 
shelter five college boys consecrated them- 
selves to foreign missions. It is the birth- 



150 THE WORKING CHURCH. 

place of the foreign missionary work of the 
American Church. I follow those boys into 
manhood, and to the other side of the globe. 
The-Asiatic cholera smote Gordon Hall and 
Samuel Newell, and their dust lies mingled 
with the coral sands of India. Adoniram. 
Juclson was buried at sea. Samuel J. Mills 
found an ocean grave on the coast of Africa. 

Say, if one will, if one is so narrow and 
hard-hearted, that their lives knew no peace 
and satisfaction ; but one cannot long reflect 
on their work without knowing the deep com- 
pensations of their lives. They had builded 
their lives, they had builded their bodies, into 
the temple of God on earth, — a temple within 
whose walls the nations are to be gathered. 
They had laid down their lives as stepping- 
stones in the brook of time, that on them 
the Son of Man might walk in His trium- 
phant progress round the world. Thus to 
build and thus to be were compensation 
sufficient. 

We ask, Was Christ's life happy or un- 
happy, joyous or sad? It seems to me that 



REWARDS OF CHRISTIAN WORK. I 5 I 

it must have been a life in which both joy 
and sadness were more complete than in that 
of any other man. No one of Christ's insight 
into human nature, of Christ's tender heart, 
could live thirty-three years without seeing 
the sufferings of our poor, fallen, suffering 
humanity. Do you not think that He who 
saw and felt all the anguish and woe and 
sorrow of human hearts must have been sad 
and sorrowful? We never read of His smil- 
ing ; we do read of His weeping. I think 
He must also have wept many silent tears. 
But do you not think that compensations of 
infinite worth were also His ? What if one 
could go down to the pestilential parts of the 
great towns and say to the hungry, suffering, 
maimed, perishing bodies and souls, " Come 
to me ; I will give you what you most need," 
would not his heart be full of the deepest 
and richest and completest joy ? This was 
Christ's power. This power must have been 
the source of joy. He could give, He wanted 
to give, He did give to all just so far as 
they were willing to receive what each most 



152 THE WORKING CHURCH 

needed. His work was simply the work of 
man and of God, — the work of the God-man 
for the redemption of the world. His life 
must have been a life of the supremest joy 
and satisfaction. 

In the feudal period of the Middle Ages', 
when a young man was to be made a knight, 
the attendants clothed him in a white tunic, a 
symbol of purity ; in a red robe, a symbol of 
the blood which he was bound to shed in the 
service of the faith ; in a toga, — a close black 
coat, — a symbol of the death which awaited 
him as well as all men. They put on his coat 
of mail, bound on his spurs, and girded on his 
sword. With his helmet on his brow, bran- 
dishing his lance, he went forth to war in the 
contest of chivalry. Imprisonment, suffering, 
death, might await him ; honor and fame and 
station might be his reward : but if he were a 
true chevalier, his deepest compensation would 
be the assurance that he was fighting for the 
faith with all his might, and that a hundred 
deaths were a bauble compared to his loyalty 
to his Divine Master and Lord. We recognize 



REWARDS OF CHRISTIAN WORK. I 53 

the compensations of the passive Christian 
virtues. We remember the eighth chapter 
of Romans. We know that like the anchor to 
the ship is this assurance that all things work 
together for good to the believer. We know 
that confidence which is founded upon the 
truth that " every man's life is a plan of 
God." We know the blessedness of seeing 
the love of God as revealed in the cross of 
Christ. They are all rich blessings and 
heavenly rewards of Christian service. But 
we would first give to men a richer com- 
pensation, the compensation of the service 
itself. " Behold, we have left all and fol- 
lowed thee." The following is the reward. 
Every faithful Christian can well say : " My 
Lord, in His work among men for God, suf- 
fered. If in my work He calls me to suffer, 
in that suffering may I find compensation. 
My Lord knew His Gethsemane. If I also 
have a Gethsemane, there, in the night and 
the cold and the loneliness, too, may I find 
my compensation. My Lord was crucified. 
If I am also nailed to some cross, in the very 



154 THE WORKING CHURCH 

agony of death may I find compensation : all, 
all in the assurance that the suffering, the 
dark Gethsemane, and the cross are the 
ways in which I work with God in His labors 
for the redemption of the world/' 



UNDER FRENCH SKIES; 

Or, Sunny Fields ^rcu> 3ha.e>y Woods. 
By Madame de GASPARIN, 

Author of "Near and Heavenly Horizons." 
16mo, Cloth, $1.25. 



This is a new work by the author of " Near and Heavenly Hori- 
zons/' which, when published some years ago, attained such popularity 
that the Countess Gasparin's latest publication will probably be 
eagerly sought for. The author's love of nature, the depth of her 
religious feeling, and the rare quality of her literary skill, give her 
works a charm and grace which secure to them an assured place in 
literature. 

" We have seldom read a professedly religious book so thoroughly 
free from dogmatism, so sympathetic in its tone, and so wholesome 
in its spirit of wide and truly Christian charity, or one in which the 
author so evidently wrote from the fullness of the heart. Considered 
merely as a literary production, Madame de Gasparin's work is equally 
deserving of praise. There is about it an amount of care and of finish 
which are not amongst the least proofs of the writer's earnestness and 
sincerity." — Glasgow He? aid. 

" This collection of historiettes by Madame de Gasparin has to do, 
in the way of scene, chiefly with the Jura borderland district on the 
Swiss and French frontiers. It has a type of beauty of its own. Its 
modest mountain heights contrasted with the magnificent panorama 
of the Bernese Oberland within view, its wealth of dark pine forest, 
its pastoral highlands of intense green, have great attractions for 
many, not least for the authoress herself. And this district, known 
and loved as it is by the writer, is here peopled with a number of 
actors who come forward in the various tales contained in the volume. 
Raoul and Marjolaine, the happy young couple in their mountain 
cottage and bit of farm, Pierre the woodman, Silvio and Serinette, the 
loves of Victor and Louise ; these, and many more, form the dramatis 
persona that appear in the pleasant pages of the book." — London 
Bookseller. 

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of the price, by 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., 

740 and 742 Broadway, New York. 



Two Books of National Interest. 



The very general attention attracted by the publication, under the 
title of "National Perils and Opportunities/' of the Discussions of the 
General Christian Conference held at Washington, D.C., Dec. 7-9, 
1887, under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance, has induced the 
publishers, in th*e hope of finding a still larger circle of readers, to 
issue, in two uniform cheap volumes, certain of these noteworthy 
papers, grouped under the two following titles, which describe the 
divisions into which the work of the Conference naturally fell ': 

PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION: Their Prac- 
tical Solution the Pressing Christian Duty of To-day. By Pres- 
idents McCosh and Gates, Bishop Coxe, Rev. Drs. Pierson, 
Dorchester, McPherson, and Ha^good ; Hon. Seth Low ; 
Prof. Boyesen ; Col. J. L. Greene, and Rev. Samuel Lane 
Loomis. (Uniform with Co operation in Christian Work.) 
i6mo. Paper, 30 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 

The topics are: " Immigration/' by Boyesen; "Misuse of 
Wealth," by Gates ; " Estrangement from the Church," by Pierson ; 
" Ultramontanism," by Coxe ; " The Saloon," by Haygood ; "The 
Social Vice," by Greene ; Relation of the Church to the Capital and 
Labor Question," by McCosh and Low ; " The City as a Peril/' by 
Dorchester, McPherson, and Loomis. 

CO-OPERATION IN CHRISTIAN WORK : Common Ground 
for United Interdenominational Effort. By Bishop Harris, 
Rev. Drs. Storrs, Gladden, Strong, Russell, Schauffler, 
Gordon, King, and Hatcher, President Gilman, Professor 
Geo. E. Post, and others. (Uniform with " Problems of Amer- 
ican Civilization.") i6mo. Paper, 30 cents ; cloth, 60 cents. 

The topics are : " Necessity of Co-operation in Christian Work," 
by Storrs, Harris, Gladden, and Post ; " Methods of Co-opera- 
tion in Christian Work," by Strong ; "Co-operation in Small Cities," 
by Russell; "Co-operation in Large Cities," by Schauffler; 
"Christian Resources of Our Country," by King, Gilman, and 
Hatcher; "Individual Responsibility Growing out of Perils and 
Opportunities," by Gordon, and others. 

Sent, postpaid, on receipt of the price, by 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., 

740 and 742 Broadway, New York. 



A WORK OF PROFOUND INTEREST TO THE 
CHRISTIAN WORLD/ 



SOCIALISM and 

CHRISTIANITY. 

By A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 
12 mo, Paper, 50 Cents. Cloth, $1.00 



This book treats from a new point of view the problems raised by the most 
frequently advanced social theories of the day ; their relations to the reciprocal 
duties of Labor and Capital, and the position of the Christian Church with 
reference to the social and industrial movements that are taking place about it 

CONTENTS: 

I. Social Theories. II. Historical Sketch. III. The Assumptions of 
Modern Socialism. IV. The Economic Fallacies of Modern Socialism. 
V. The Rights of Labor. VI. The Responsibilities of Wealth. VII. The 
Personal and Social Causes of Pauperism. VIII. The Historical Causes 
of Pauperism and its Cure. IX. The Treatment of the Criminal Classes. 
X. Modern Socialism, Religion, and the Family. 

"It is a book for the times in the interest of truth and justice and pure religion. 
We have read it from beginning to end with unflagging interest, and shall read it a 
second time this summer, and hope to lay some extracts before our readers." — New 
York Observer. 

" It is the first approach to a popular systematic presentation of the principles of 
the destructive socialism of the day. The questions which it discusses are now so 
prominent, and their social bearing is so vital, that ministers should deal with them. 
We commend this volume to them, especially to all who desire to get an intelligent 
view of one of the burning questions of the day." — Presbyteria?i Journal. 

11 The book should be in every home ; and we are sure that if the principles which 
it advocates and the information which it presents were given to every family in the 
land, the present disturbances in our country would soon be at an end." — St. Louis 
Central Baptist. 



Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by 

THE BAKER & TATLOE 00, Publishers, 

740 and 74r3 Broadway, New York. 



EVANGELISTIC WORK 

In Principle and Practice. 

By Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, E). D. 
12mo, Cloth, $1.25. 

A new book on that method which has been one of the most 
potent means of building up the Christian Church — Evangelization. 
It is written by an acknowledged master of the subject. 

" This book is preeminently a book for the hour. It is at once 
a fruit of the reviving evangelistic spirit and a welcome and powerful 
force for the promotion of that spirit among the disciples of Christ. 
All who are working for Christ, especially all ministers and teachers, 
ought to procure and study this book." — Christian Statesman. 

Si More truth, perhaps, than can be found in any single uninspired 
book, concerning 'evangelistic work/ is included in a volume with 
this title, by Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. Truths of the first imp'ortance 
are spoken concerning methods and the treatment of the poor. After 
having set down the principle as he believes it to be, the author has 
enforced it in sketches of Whitefield, Howard, Finney, Chalmers, 
Moody, Bliss, and others. The book ought to have a wide circulation; 
it cannot but be productive of the greatest good." — Hartford Post. 

"Every phase of the question is discussed, the methods and 
merits of different evangelists are set forth, apostolic and modern 
preaching compared, and the causes of failure and success in minis- 
terial work portrayed. It is a book to be studied by all church 
workers. " — Indianapolis Journal. 

" The book is dedicated to Dwight L. Moody, and would seem 
to contain nearly all that can be said in the way of information, 
instruction, example, or exhortation upon the subject. " 

— Baptist Standard. 

" The chapters on the great Evangelists are delightfully written 
in a lofty and devout spirit." — Indianapolis News, 

" His views will be accepted as of orthodox authority." 

— Washington Critic. 

Sent j postpaid,, on receipt of the price, by 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., 

Publishers, 

74G and 742 Broadway, New York. 



MODERN CITIES 

AND THEIR RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS. 

By Rev. SAMUEL LANE LOOMIS. 

With an Introduction by Rev. JOSIAH STRONG, D.l>, 

1 2mo, Cloth, $1.00. 



" For all who love their fellow-men, this book will be a stimulus 
and a guide. It presents clearly and forcibly the increasingly difficult 
problem of the modern city, and will prove to be a storehouse of in- 
formation to all workers in this field. Like 'Our Country/ by Rev. 
Dr. Strong, this book is one of the most marked books of the current 
year. Every worker in city or country should read and inwardly 
digest this suggestive volume." — Rev. A. F. Schauffler, D.D. 

" This volume is in point and substance the companion volume to 
be read in connection with * Our Country,' by the Rev Josiah Strong, 
D.D. The author's sociology is sound. The chapters on methods 
of philanthropic endeavor, and especially those which show what has 
been done, are wise and helpful. We commend the book heartily to 
our readers." — The Independent. 

" This is an important little volume, and a fit companion to place 
side by side with the remarkable work by Dr. Strong, entitled ■ Our 
Country.' It is a book which will startle many and convince all who 
read it. It ought to go into every household in the land." — Christian 
at Work. 

"The author has reached more nearly to the true cause of the 
difficulty, and the proper manner to remove it, than any other author 
with whose works we are acquainted." — Hartford Post. 

"A striking and sensible book — one of the clearest and best things 
ever written on this live and stirring current question." — Michigan 
Christiait Advocate. 

"A timely book, well written, sensible, practical. A book that 
deserves reading." — Springfield Union. 

" The present volume is directly to the point, wise, timely, and 
earnest." — Christian Sanctuary. 

" This is a very able book." — Baltimore Sun. 



Sent, postpaid, on receipt of the price, by 

The Baker & Taylor Co., 

PUBLISHERS, 

740 AND 742 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 



A Book for all who love God and Country. 

INTO-W FIB j^XD^T i 

The HSth Thousand of "that Wonderful Book/ 1 

OUR COUNTRY: 

ITS POSSIBLE FUTURE AND ITS PRESEN7 

CRISIS. 

By Rev. JOSIAH STRONG, D.D. 

With an Introduction by Prof. AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 



229 PAGES. 12mo, PAPER, 25 CENTS. CLOTH, 50 CENTS., 



This is probably the most powerful work that has come from the 
American press during the present century. With a brilliantly 
marshalled array of unimpeachable facts, it portrays America's 
material, social and religious condition and probable trend, points 
out the perils which threaten her future, and, with wonderful clear- 
ness and tremendous force, both shows the means of averting 
danger and inspires enthusiasm for the task. The wide circulation 
of this book has given an extraordinary impulse to the work of 
holding America for the highest, political, social and religious, 
national life. The following notices show what the press and tho 
pulpit think of it : 

"Strong, careful, thoughtful."— Boston Journal. 

" Stirring, startling, convincing." — The Guardian. 

" Ought to reach a circulation of a million." — N. Y. Evangelist. 

" Ought to be read by every person in this country." — St. Louis Central 
Baptist. 

"Words are feeble in the recommendation of this book. It enlightens, 
stirs, quickens, and makes the blood boil with patriotic zeal and Christian 
vehemence." — Pulpit Treasury. 

" ' Our Country' is the one book next to the Bible that I want them (the 
people) to read." — Rev. A. T. Reed, Plainville, Conn, 

11 It thrills me through and through." — Rev. T. O. Douglas. 

" The best book of its sort ever published." — Rev. Way land Hoyt, D.D. 

11 It seems to me-the most important book which has been issued in this 
decade." — Rev. Charles F. Deems, D.D. 

" This volume is a storehouse of information. We recall no recent volume 
which has so much packed into it of value for the minister, the editor, the 
teacher, and in general, the patriot, as this little volume on « Our Country.' " 
— Christian Union. 

Sent post-paid, on receipt of the price, by 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO., Publishers, 

740 and 74& BROADWAY, NEW YORK 



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